


Forever Bound to Roam

by highreaches



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Additional Dragon Age II cameos, Additional Inquisition cameos, Canon Compliant, Comfort/Angst, Dragon Age: Last Flight spoilers and cameos, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-27
Updated: 2015-05-03
Packaged: 2018-03-19 05:05:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3597387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/highreaches/pseuds/highreaches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Weary and troubled by his time in the Inquisition, Hawke finally reaches the ancient Grey Warden fortress of Weisshaupt, unaware that what - and who - he needs most is already waiting there for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written because one can only handle so many angst-ridden interpretations of the option to leave Hawke in the Fade. Title and subsequent quote is from "The Song of Hope" by A.R. Rahman and Christopher Nightingale.

_"Wandering the empty road in twilight’s silver shade_  
_Following the hidden paths lonely and afraid_  
_Let the sunlight free the heart forever bound to roam_  
_And let the waking morning find the weary traveler returning home"_

In the brief, cloying moments before he opened his eyes to the desolate landscape of the Anderfels, Hawke thought he was home. 

He hadn’t been dreaming exactly; after what happened at Adamant, he did his best to remain at the edge of the Fade, watching the amorphous lights and shapes of would-be dreams rather than immersing himself in them. This psuedo-sleep was less restful, but it kept him far from Nightmare’s realm. This way, nothing could rise from the depths to fill his mind with whispers of dead parents and siblings and a lover he could never save.

No, it was the warm crackling of the nearby fire that had felt so reminiscent of better times, better places. With eyes closed, Hawke had been able to pretend he was in his old mansion in Hightown. The dry winds whistling down from the Hunterhorn Mountains could have been the very same winds that blustered through Kirkwall in the wintertime. The smell of breakfast cooking could have come from Orana in the kitchen downstairs. But the reality of his situation became painfully apparent when he realized there was no one lying beside him. Even after months of traveling and working with the Inquisition, Hawke still hadn’t grown used to sleeping alone.

“You’d better be awake, Champion! Maker knows I’ve never met anyone who sleeps on the road as easily as you do.”

Hawke quickly adjusted the frown on his face into an expression of ease. “When you’re as utterly gorgeous as I am, Kelani, you learn to take your beauty rest where you can get it. Even if it happens to be on miles and miles of cold, hard rock.”

His dwarven companion snorted. For a moment, Hawke thought she was going to retort (they’d developed an impressive rapport over the course of their travels; honestly, what was it with him and dwarves?), but Kelani simply shook her head and returned her attention to their breakfast.

They’d first met outside Val Foret one week after Hawke began trekking up the Imperial Highway alone. Kelani had been on secret assignment for the Wardens in Montsimmard when a surviving comrade from Adamant contacted her about what had happened there. Eager for eye witness accounts and admittedly curious about the infamous Champion of Kirkwall, she had decided to find Hawke and escort him to Weisshaupt herself. 

Sheer loneliness had been the ultimate factor in Hawke’s decision to follow her. But, Maker, was he glad he did. After so many years spent with his closest friends, the prospect of traversing the Anderfels alone had put him into a sort of despair the likes of which he hadn’t felt since the death of his mother. He didn’t do well on his own. He never had. And to have someone like Kelani at his side - talkative, clever, surprisingly sincere - made a world of difference. 

Since their first encounter, they’d spent roughly four weeks on horseback, crossing the eerily quiet roads that lead from Orlais into the Anderfels. And now, at last, their destination loomed on the horizon. Hawke wasn’t sure what to expect when they arrived, but he hoped it would signal the end of his mission. He was done with Grey Wardens for now.

Once they’d eaten and the previous night’s dust storms had cleared, they climbed atop their horses and took off towards the distant behemoth of Weisshaupt Fortress. As the hours passed and idle conversation lapsed into companionable silence, the wind picked up and slowed the horses to a labored trot. Hawke was about to question (for the hundredth time) just how anyone could stand to live in such a Maker-forsaken country, when the pendant he kept tucked against his breast was suddenly swept from its hiding place by the wind. 

For a brief, panicked moment, Hawke thought the charm would rip off entirely and be forever lost in the churning sands beneath him. But his reflexes were quick enough and his grip strong enough that the pendant remained securely within his grasp. When the breeze finally died down, Hawke uncurled his fist to reveal the unharmed token resting in his hand. It was small and unremarkable, a piece of summer stone set against a rounded gold backing. It would probably fetch a dismal price at market, but to Hawke, it was incomparably precious.

He felt Kelani’s eyes on him, watching curiously. But she didn’t say anything about it until they’d gone another hundred paces through the deserted steppes. 

“Who gave you that trinket?” she asked, one hand resting across her knee. For a very small dwarf on a very large horse, she seemed remarkably at ease. 

The brief fear of losing the pendant had put Hawke in a foul mood and his words matched it. “Who says anyone gave it to me?” he replied petulantly.

“Oh, very mature.”

In spite of himself, Hawke laughed. “I could just ride off into the distance if you preferred.”

“Well, that would be more exciting,” said the dwarf. She must have noted Hawke’s restlessness, because a moment later she added, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“No, I…” Hawke shook his head with a sigh. The summer stone suddenly felt heavier against his chest. “It was a gift from someone I care about, to remind me of him while I’m away.”

He drew a long breath. It had been some time since he’d spoken of Fenris, and too soon since he’d wondered when next they’d see each other. 

Kelani smiled sympathetically and said no more.

_____  


_ Arling of Amaranthine, 9:41 Dragon_

They'd argued for hours about Hawke’s departure, stalking back and forth across the small space of their rented house. Varric’s letter lay between them, punctured from where Fenris had stabbed it into the floorboards. For his part, Hawke was trying to convince Fenris of the necessity of his leaving just as much as he’d been trying to convince himself. On all accounts, he was failing.

“Fenris, this isn’t a question of whether or not I want you at my side.”

“Then I’ll pack my things for the journey ahead.”

Hawke gripped the edge of the rickety dining table to steady himself. “You can’t.”

“Oh?” said Fenris, rounding on him. His eyes flashed wildly in the candlelight. “Is that a command?”

“What? No!” Hawke ran his fingers through his hair in exasperation. “I am asking you, as someone who loves you and would do anything in his power to protect you - let me go alone this time.”

Fenris threw his hands up in the air and, after muttering several long strings of Tevene, asked, “Why?”

“Varric says there’s red lyrium involved,” Hawke said quietly. “A lot of it.”

At last, the reality of the situation began to sink in. The bristling anger that had once colored Fenris’s posture now melted into one of quiet sorrow. He hung his head, eyes fixed on the floor. “You fear my markings will become infected.”

“Yes.” Hawke dared to step closer. “Especially with whispers that another Blight might be starting. If it were anything else, Fenris - demons, wyverns, giant spiders -  we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. But if Varric is right, having you along will just put you in unnecessary danger.”

Fenris met his gaze slowly. “And what do you intend to do with this Inquisition?”

“Help, if I can,” said Hawke. “Whatever’s going on in the Grey Wardens is undoubtedly linked to Corypheus. I’ll write to Stroud, try to organize some sort of meeting.”

“Why not let him handle it, then?” Fenris asked, more to himself than to Hawke. “Why does it have to be you?”

“I’ve been asking myself that since Kirkwall.”

Fenris glared at him. “You would jest at a time like this?”

Hawke took his hand. “Don’t you know by now? Laughter is the only way I can handle this sort of thing. Otherwise I might do something rash. Like cry. Or fall at your feet and beg you to chain me to your side.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Fenris replied with a small smile.

They stood in silence for a moment before Hawke folded his arms around the elf and pulled him in close. “I’ve made so many mistakes in my life,” he murmured against Fenris’s hair. “I couldn’t protect my family, I couldn’t stop Kirkwall from tearing itself apart…”

“None of that was your fault,” Fenris replied. “Why do you insist on doing penance for things that were out of your control?”

“I just want to make something right, for once. Whatever we did to Corypheus wasn’t enough the first time around. If I have a chance to fix that, I’d like to take it. In a perfect world, I’d have you by my side while I did.”

Fenris pressed a kiss to Hawke’s jaw. “I think we know by now, my love, that this world is anything but.”

Hawke sighed. “So you understand now? Why I have to go?”

“I understand why I cannot follow,” Fenris replied. “The rest, we will have to agree to disagree.”

“Thank you,” Hawke began to say.

“I’m not finished.” Fenris stepped forward until there was not even a hand’s breadth between them. “You must promise me,” he said. “Promise me you’ll return.”

When Hawke faltered, Fenris grabbed the front of his shirt. “I’m not interested in uncertainty. Not now. Tell me without doubt that you will come back.”

Regardless of whether or not it was true, Hawke nodded. He took Fenris’s face in his hands and bowed their heads together. “I will.”

“Swear it.”

“I swear.”

When they kissed, it did not feel like a condemnation, but a vow. Inevitably, Hawke thought back to that embrace they shared in the Gallows years ago, how hopeless everything had seemed then. And yet they had made it through that unscathed. With luck, they could do it again. 

Later that evening, in what little light was provided by the melting candle on the bedside table, Fenris slipped out of bed and began rummaging through his pack. Hawke rose up on his side to watch the elf’s faintly glowing markings guide his movements in the dark. When he returned, he was clutching something in his fist.

“This was going to be your name-day present,” he said. “But I’m afraid we might be celebrating that apart this year.”

Fenris opened his palm to reveal a necklace, small and discreet in size. In the center, illuminated by his tattoos, lay a smooth stone fastened into a round, gold backing. It was the color of warm sand and honey, but, when tilted, revealed tiny fissures of pale blue throughout.

“Summer stone,” Fenris explained. “Not uncommon, but the color reminded me of your eyes. I had hoped you would wear it…and think of me.”

Hawke touched the gift lightly with his fingers, unable to put into words how moved he was by this ordinary bit of metal. They didn’t give each other presents often, but when the occasion came about, the tokens often meant far more than they looked.

“I’m never taking this off,” Hawke said beneath an ill-disguised sniffle once Fenris had fastened the pendant around his neck. 

“You’d better not,” Fenris chuckled as he pressed his palm to Hawke’s chest and kissed him deeply.

In the morning, Fenris stood in the front doorway, silhouetted by the warm glow of the rising sun. He only stepped aside when Hawke could find nothing else to stall himself with.

When it was time for their farewells, they held one another until it was as if one breath passed between them, not two. Hawke kissed Fenris’s forehead, then his lips, slowly and sweetly. He had to savor this.

“I love you,” he said when they broke apart. “I’ll write you the first chance I get.”

“ _Iter vestrum sit tutum_. Safe travels, _amatus_.”

Hawke turned and started off on the path away from him, digging the edge of his staff into the dirt as he went. The thrushes were singing already, ducking and diving through the trees. Any other day, they might have gone for a walk together and taken in the fresh air, fingers interlaced. They might have eaten their lunch outdoors, then sparred together in the high grass beyond the cottage. They might have dined in Amaranthine and listened to the minstrels performing in the tavern. Hawke smiled sadly to himself. These things would have to wait.

“Hawke!”

He turned suddenly to watch Fenris break free of whatever willful restraint had kept him in the doorway and dart down the path towards him. They should’ve known one goodbye would not be enough. 

Hawke caught Fenris in his arms and kissed him desperately. It was impossible to tell how long they stood like that, locked tight together in the middle of the road, oblivious to anything but each other. And Hawke knew that his resolve was already on a razor’s edge. It would be so easy to take Fenris’s hand and lead them both back to the house, to shut out the world and pretend not a thing was wrong. But he couldn’t. Maker help him, he had to go.

When Fenris at last released him, flushed and shaking with emotion, Hawke pressed a kiss to his brow and lingered there, breathing in the scent of him, willing himself to memorize it for the lonely days ahead. Fenris was still touching him, deft hands running across his chest, tangling themselves in the dark hair at the nape of his neck.

“Keep an eye on the horizon,” Hawke whispered. “You’ll see me there soon enough.”

Fenris nodded and gave him a gentle push down the path. They held each other’s gaze for as long as they could, until Hawke had to turn at last and face whatever lay ahead. Several paces later, however, he gave himself one final chance to look back.

Fenris had returned to the house and was now bracing himself against the wooden doorframe like it was the only thing keeping him upright. His eyes were closed and his head was bowed as if in prayer.  Hawke took a deep breath to steady himself and, once he’d turned away again, began to recite a prayer of his own. He was conscious of the fact that there might not be anyone to hear him, eager to be proven wrong.

“O Maker, hear my cry: Guide me through the blackest nights…”

He repeated the Transfigurations until he could no longer remember the words, until the sun was dipping low over the distant Frostback Mountains, and he was very far from home.

_____

When night fell, they were but a few miles shy of their goal. Kelani slid gracelessly from the back of her horse and collapsed onto the ground, one arm flung over her eyes. “One more night in the cold,” she said, more for her benefit than for Hawke’s. “One more blasted night.”

Hawke snorted and joined her in the sand. The heat of the day lingered there, a pleasant illusion soon to be dispelled by the night’s chill. He was quickly realizing the full extent of his hatred for deserts. 

They lay on their backs for several long minutes, watching the stars. Hawke recalled an evening in Kirkwall when he and Fenris had poured over a book of ancient Tevinter astronomy they’d discovered below decks on a slaver vessel. He remembered Fenris’s eagerness as he dragged Hawke to the windowpane to show him the constellations visible only in the Southern sky. 

“That’s _Draconis_ ,” he’d murmured. “Do you see its wings there? I thought you’d like that one. Oh! And that’s probably _Equinor_. Though I suspect we won’t see it fully because of the clouds.”

Hawke had traced the shape of a wolf depicted on the page. Fenris, in turn, traced it in the stars. 

“This one’s my favorite,” Hawke declared as he watched Fenris connect the constellation with his fingertips. 

“And why is that?”

“I wonder…” Hawke murmured with a wink before he’d hooked his fingers under the elf’s chin and tilted his face up for a kiss.

Hawke sighed heavily at the memory. 

He told himself he should be glad to have something like that to hold on to. The ache in his chest, however, begged to differ. But as his gaze swept across the sky above, a familiar pattern caught his eye and he couldn’t help the smile it provoked. 

“What are your thoughts on astronomy, my dear dwarf?” he asked, crossing his arms behind his head.

Kelani looked at him with one eyebrow raised. “You do realize most of my people spend their whole lives underground, right?”

“ _You_ didn’t. Humor me.”

“Alright, alright. What do you see?” 

“Tilt your head back just a bit and follow those mountain ridges to the left. If you look straight up from there, you’ll see four stars lined up in a row.”

Kelani squinted. 

“See them?”

“I think so,” she muttered. “Is this some weird mage shit?”

“No,” Hawke laughed. “Though I can’t blame you for the assumption. Alright, now have a look for one star above the row. When you connect them all together you’ll see the hilt of a sword. The four stars make up the crossguard, see?”

Kelani rose up on her hands and craned her neck backwards. “Oh, and that star underneath them - farther than the first one - that’s the blade!”

“Yes!”

Hawke felt a little foolish for getting so excited about a sword in the sky, but he hadn’t felt this good in a long while and was determined to savor it.

“What’s it called?” Kelani asked, still gazing in wonder at the vastness of the constellation above them.

“ _Judex_ , if you’ll forgive my piss-poor Tevinter accent. I used to have this enormous book on astronomy back in Kirkwall. That was one of the first constellations I ever learned to find.”

“Did you teach yourself?”

“Ah, not quite.” Hawke cleared his throat. “My friend, he…”

“ _Oh_ ,” said Kelani with a hint of mirth. “The mysterious, necklace-bestowing friend?”

_The tiny, deadly, ill-tempered love of my life, you mean?_ Hawke wanted to reply. But something made him stop. As much as he wanted to shake loose his thoughts of Fenris and watch them take shape in a place other than his already troubled mind, he couldn’t find the proper words with which to do it.

“You’re very nosy,” he said instead, and began searching the sky for another constellation to distract himself with. 

“Says the man who convinced me to tell him all about my boring childhood in Rivain for the better part of an hour.”

“That bit about the melon seller was far from boring and you know it.”

They bantered back and forth for several more minutes, snorting and shoving at each other’s shoulders like children. Hawke wondered when exactly he’d reverted in both age and maturity level, but maybe this was simply what it felt like to have a friend again. 

This wasn’t to say that Fenris or Varric or anyone else from Kirkwall were not still his closest companions. But Fenris was his lover, too; and the rest of the little family he’d gathered in the Free Marches were nowhere near as constant to him as he’d like. He missed them, and the acknowledgment of this quieted him significantly. Kelani noticed.

“Tired?” she asked. “We can head over to the caves if you want.”

Hawke brushed an imaginary grain of sand from his trousers. “I think I’m about to make a very stupid confession,” he said.

“Should I…stop you?” Kelani asked slowly. 

“Erm, probably not. Best to let it run its course,” Hawke said in a strained voice. “This _is_ about the friend, by the way. The mysterious, necklace-bestowing one. Whom I love, just so you’re aware. But it’s also about me in a backwards, malaise-ridden hero sort of way.”

“Feelings really aren’t your thing, huh?” the dwarf chuckled. “It does help if you remember to breathe, though.”

This was true, and Hawke did so gratefully. He gave himself a moment to change his mind, to shove back these unwelcome feelings and return to his usual flippant facade. But Hawke was, if anything, a problem solver. And he knew that this particular problem would never cease if he insisted on burying it.

“I left him,” Hawke said finally. “My…Fenris. Not for good, mind you. But I left him behind so I could run off to help the Inquisition and be a hero, I suppose. And I hate that I felt obligated to do that, and that Varric felt obligated to _ask_ me to do that. Because it’s done something to us, all this death and destruction. It’s turned us both into men we can’t even recognize sometimes. I feel it so clearly; like I’m different than I was.”

Kelani reached across the space between them and settled her hand over his arm, eyes still on the stars.

“I’m afraid I won’t be able to go back to who I was before. I can pretend well enough, but for how long? And what if Fenris doesn’t like what he sees then?” Hawke cleared his throat. “I’m rambling, I know. And it’s probably because I’m just tired of traveling and I need a proper night’s rest but there you have it. Whining over, I promise.”

Kelani considered all this, then said, “Well, first things first: that isn’t stupid.”

“It certainly _feels_ stupid.”

“You don’t give yourself enough credit,” she insisted. “Which is something I never thought I’d tell you, by the way—”

“Thanks for that.”

“—I call it like it is, Champion. But now that I know what a brilliantly constructed illusion all that bravado is, I’m willing to let it slide. Permission to continue?”

Hawke nodded. Kelani certainly had a point, after all.

“The way I see it,” she began, now sitting crosslegged in the sand, “we’re changing all the time. I’m not the same person I was when I left Weisshaupt for Montsimmard. I don’t think I’m even the same as I was when I first met up with you. Nothing is as constant as we’d like it to be. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

Hawke took this in slowly, breathed it into the ache in his chest. 

“I mean, look at the sky.” Kelani gestured up at the stars and Hawke watched each pinprick of light fan out between her fingers. “It changes every day and nobody’s worrying over that. The sun isn’t gone forever just because the moon is out.”

“Are you comparing me to a celestial body, Kelani?” Hawke teased, but the joke felt weak and out of place beneath the understanding taking hold of him. 

“Do you see what I’m saying, though? The parts of yourself you think you’ve lost - the man you were in Kirkwall and afterwards - aren’t completely gone. They’ve just grown a bit, reshaped themselves." Kelani smiled encouragingly at him. "So have a little faith in yourself, would you? There’s a good man sitting next to me right now. A great one, even. And that’s only what I’ve gathered after a few weeks of knowing you. Imagine how Fenris and the rest of your friends must see you.”

Hawke felt moisture on his cheek and realized with a start that he’d begun to cry. Embarrassed, he brushed the wayward tears away, well aware that Kelani had already seen them. But he took comfort in the fact that he knew she wouldn’t judge him for it.

“Dwarven wisdom,” he said softly. “Who would have thought?”

“That’s what you get when you raise a dwarf in Rivain: stalwart practicality and gentle universalist philosophy. Bizarre, but helpful.”

“Well, thank you,” said Hawke. “I’m not really sure what else there is to say.”

Kelani got to her feet and began shaking the sand off of her Warden’s armor. “Just promise me you’ll take it easy on yourself from now on, alright? Simpler to say than to do, but something tells me you can make an effort when you really want to.”

“I’ll try,” Hawke said sincerely. “And while we’re steeped in sentimentality, you should know that letting you pressure me into traveling with you across the Anderfels was the best decision I’ve made in a long time. Honestly.”

“Oh, come here already,” Kelani muttered and hauled Hawke to a kneeling position so she could embrace him. 

“My lady!” he cried in mock scandalization. “I thought I wasn’t your type!”

"Why do I even bother," the dwarf muttered, shoving Hawke back onto the ground. With a shake of her head, she struck off towards the cave that was to be their lodging for the night, laughing as she went. Hawke grinned and leaned back to look at the stars once more, cataloguing everything he’d said and heard over the past hour. 

“You’re a good man,” he said to himself, testing out the shape and the feel of the words in his mouth. 

He didn’t quite believe them yet; he might never. But in that moment, lying on his back beneath a sea of stars, Hawke at last understood that there was still time for him to put faith in that sentiment; time, at least, to try. Death had been hanging over him for so long in his months away that the concept of a life beyond his mission for the Inquisition was almost unimaginable. Now, however, there was an opportunity for that. Weisshaupt was a short distance away and Fenris would not be far beyond. And after that, the possibilities stretched out as endlessly as the sky above.

This was hope, Hawke realized. A fool’s hope, perhaps, but hope nonetheless. 

And it was this particular brand of hope that led his thoughts back to Fenris, and to the faint possibility that they were gazing up at the same sky this very moment, tracing the very same stars. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this fanfiction or writing therapy? You be the judge. Updates will hopefully be weekly, and I promise an actual, not-borne-of-memory, Fenris in Part Two. 
> 
> The Tevene phrase used in the flashback is Latin for: "May your journey be safe".


	2. Chapter 2

Though they’d taken off at sunrise, Hawke and Kelani didn’t reach the final stretch of desert separating them from Weisshaupt until well after midday. The winter sun was falling fast over the mountain peaks, painting everything a deep, rusty red. Hawke curved a hand over his eyes and peered in wonder at the battlements of the ancient Warden fortress. Silver and blue banners hung from the towers, fluttering in the breeze. The movement caused the griffons embroidered on them to look as if they’d taken flight.

“Civilization at last,” said Kelani. “Welcome to Weisshaupt, Champion.”

Hawke shook his head with a grin. “For the last time, you can just call me ‘Hawke’.”

“Oh, I know. But it’s fun to watch you ruffle up when I don’t.”

With that, they sped their horses to a gallop, thick plumes of dust rising up behind them. A small stable was carved out of the rock at the base of the fortress and there they turned over their mounts to the aging horsemaster. Kelani gave him a salute and then guided Hawke to the sloping path that lifted Weisshaupt from the cracked, dry earth beneath it.

From what Hawke could see, the path was made entirely of stone and switched back and forth like a long serpent slithering up the mountainside. This trek wasn’t going to be an easy one.

“It’s about a three mile climb to the gates,” said Kelani. “Don’t worry, though. There are stairs. Sometimes.”

“Lovely,” said Hawke.

As they began their ascent, Hawke marveled at the sheer magnitude of the architecture. Whoever built the fortress clearly expected any attacking darkspawn to give up a frontal assault out of sheer frustration. Those that remained would probably be half-dead from exhaustion and too weak to fight anyway. Clever, thought Hawke, but no less lethal for weary travelers. Halfway up and the muscles in his legs were already burning with effort.

Kelani, however, seemed nonplussed. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re out of shape,” she said.

Hawke grunted. “Oh, yes, because I’ve spent the past three years on the run doing nothing but vigorous stair climbing. Didn’t you know?”

A moment later, he added, “All kidding aside, if I have to go another ten minutes at this, Kelani, I’m turning around and spending the night with the horses. Grey Wardens be damned.”

“We’re almost there, you big baby.”

This, at least, was true. Though Hawke felt significantly more exhausted than he had before climbing the steep path to Weisshaupt, he and Kelani arrived upon its doorstep within minutes of Hawke’s complaint. As with all things in the monstrous stronghold, the reinforced entrance was intimidating to say the least. It was no wonder this place had never been breached, Hawke decided. You would have to be utterly foolish to try.

Suddenly, the doors parted and a gruff-looking woman with a war hammer strapped to her waist appeared on the other side. She must have seen them coming from the archer’s windows that speckled the otherwise smooth outer walls of the fortress. Though the air had turned cold in the diminishing sunlight, her tunic was sleeveless. She didn’t appear to be bothered by it.

“Well. Didn’t expect to see you back so soon.”

“Hullo, Sulwe,” Kelani greeted her cheerfully. “Things took a bit of an interesting turn in Val Foret. Did the First Warden not mention my letter?”

“First Warden doesn’t mention a lot of things.”

Kelani hummed in agreement. Clearly this First Warden wasn’t a popular fellow amongst his subordinates. “At any rate, is he in? Our illustrious guest has some important information for him. As do I.”

Sulwe glanced at Hawke, who flashed her his most winning smile to absolutely no effect, then turned her attention back to Kelani. “He’s gone to Hossberg on official business for the king, but I suspect he’ll return before the week is out. If you want an audience with him, it’ll have to be then. I don’t suppose you’d mind spending a few days at Weisshaupt, Champion?”

It was the first time she’d directly addressed Hawke, and he was unprepared for it, especially considering she actually knew who he was. He coughed awkwardly once he realized both Sulwe and Kelani were waiting for a response, then answered in the affirmative.

“Though a bath certainly wouldn’t go unappreciated,” he added. Kelani snorted but said nothing. The breeze picked up again, causing their cloaks to whip and snap sharply against their legs.

“I’ll get one of the recruits to take care of it,” Sulwe grunted. The silver caps on her teeth glinted in the sun. “But before either of you head inside, there’s a bit of business you should know about.”

“The mages haven’t gone running off to Red Bride’s Grave again, have they?” Kelani sighed.

“That sounds ominous,” said Hawke. “Not as bad as the Wounded Coast, but still.”

Sulwe ignored him.

“No, thank the Maker. But he’s certainly proving to be just as troublesome.”

“He?”

Sulwe crossed her arms and nudged one hip against the door. “Traveller showed up not four days ago, asking for the Champion of Kirkwall. An elf, and a strange one at that. Tattoos all up and down his arms. White hair. Handed me a letter written on behalf of the Inquisition and demanded I give him lodging until you arrived. I take it you know him?”

Hawke realized he hadn't taken a breath since Sulwe began speaking. He stood frozen in place, scarcely able to believe what he’d just heard.

Fenris was here somewhere. Waiting for him.

“I’ll be damned,” Kelani murmured at the very same moment Hawke found his voice and croaked, "Where?"

“Been haunting the library ever since he got here,” replied Sulwe.  “Kelani can show you the—”

But Hawke was already brushing past her and into the fortress.

 

_____

_Skyhold, 9:41 Dragon_

For all the grandiose ideas Hawke had entertained about his place in the Inquisition, he never quite expected to be writing so many letters.

To be fair, the Inquisitor was a busy woman. Crises seemed to burgeon like weeds around her, and when she wasn’t handling disputes in the throne room, she was off closing Fade Rifts and rescuing Orlesian nobility for weeks on end. And Hawke _was_ grateful for the time he got to spend catching up with Varric, but he was also rather impatient to get his business underway. Two months had already passed since he left Amaranthine, only half of which he’d spent traveling.

Hawke was in the gardens now, bent over a writing desk he’d dragged out from the undercroft. The sun was working tirelessly to drive away the mountain cold and quite a few Skyhold inhabitants were wandering the courtyard, abuzz with conversation. If he listened closely, Hawke could hear the distant sound of clanging metal, the soldiers going through their morning drills.

A shadow appeared across the letter he was currently writing, and Hawke looked up in surprise to find Cassandra Pentaghast hovering beside him. She was as imposing as ever, but there was something else in her gaze now besides the usual unnerving assuredness. Friendliness, perhaps? No, Hawke, thought. It couldn’t be.

“You have lovely handwriting,” she said. “I admit I’m rather surprised.”

 _If we’re about to have a polite conversation, color me equally shocked,_ Hawke wanted say.

“You’ve got every right to be,” he said instead. “Normally, my penmanship is just glorified chicken scratch. But the person I’m writing to, he…well, he needs things to be a little clearer.”

“Ah,” said Cassandra. She folded her hands behind her back. “The Tevinter elf, I presume? Varric has mentioned him during our travels. I admit, I found his story particularly inspiring.”

“You really did read that damn book cover to cover didn’t you?” Hawke chuckled.

“This surprises you?”

Hawke regarded her for a moment. When Varric first shared the tale of his impromptu interrogation with Cassandra, Hawke had pictured an utterly terrifying woman. And she was, to an extent. She certainly rivaled Aveline in terms of sheer muscle mass and propensity for giving particularly withering looks. But there was an undoubtable level of sincerity about her, a quiet kindness that probably went overlooked on first glance. Hawke found himself wondering if, under different circumstances, they might have been friends.

“Varric was certainly surprised,” Hawke answered with a grin. “But I’d take that as a compliment. He tends to think his writing is only suitable for bored nobles and gossips.”

Cassandra smiled at that. “He’s not wrong.”

Silence fell between them and Hawke returned to his writing while Cassandra observed the newly sprouted herbs lining the garden. After a few minutes of quiet, Hawke felt her return to his side, more restless now.

“May I ask one thing?” she said.

Hawke flashed her a dazzling smile. “Seeker, if you wanted an autograph you could have just said so.”

“What? That’s not what I…” Cassandra stopped herself and, with an unexpected chuckle, continued, “That was not my initial question, no. Though I won’t refuse the offer should time permit.”

“Noted. In the meantime, what did you really want to ask?”

Cassandra paused, and it seemed she might reconsider what she was about to say. But the doubtfulness passed and she posed the question anyway: “Why did you disappear after the Chantry explosion?”

Hawke had more or less expected that particular line of inquiry, but he was surprised at the lack of accusation in her tone. Perhaps spurred by his silence, the Seeker added: “Regardless of your choice to stand against Knight-Commander Meredith, the people of Kirkwall admired you. Trusted you, even. You could have stayed. So why didn’t you?”

Hawke traced a line of script towards the end of his letter, gliding over the slant of an _l_ , dipping into the valley of a _v_.

“For the same reason I do anything now,” he said simply. “For him.”

They walked together for a time after that, discussing Kirkwall and the mage rebellion. Though they clearly had differing opinions on the events of the past few years, Hawke was pleasantly surprised by Cassandra’s willingness to hear his thoughts. If there was any judgment lingering in her gaze, she hid it far too well for him to see.

They wandered through the upper courtyard and across the battlements, gently buffeted by the breeze. By the time they returned to the garden, Hawke had managed to wheedle out an abridged version of Cassandra’s heroic rescue of Divine Beatrix. And though she was significantly more red about the face for it, she seemed to enjoy Hawke’s rapt attention. They were two unexpected heroes; and in that, they had found a common ground.

“This has been…most enjoyable, Champion,” Cassandra said as Hawke gathered up his letters.

“The feeling’s mutual,” he replied warmly. “But most of my friends just call me ‘Hawke’.”

Cassandra smiled. “Very well, then, Hawke. I would ask one more thing of you, if I may.”

“Of course.”

“Wait here a moment,” she said and turned towards the throne room.

While she was gone, Hawke looked over his letters once more. Aveline would be pleased to hear about the Inquisition’s solidity, about his and Varric’s continued health. Carver might finally be over his initial annoyance at being dragged back to Kirkwall ( _for your own damn good_ , Hawke had written him with a flourish). Fenris had written him pages, likely with Donnic’s help, and Hawke had nearly a novel for him in return. If the majority of it was made up of sentimental cliches, well, it couldn’t be helped.

When Cassandra returned, she was holding a weighty volume in her hand with a dagger-sized hole in the cover. Hawke recognized it immediately.

“A signature would be appreciated,” she said. “Provided your offer still stands.”

Hawke took the book from her outstretched hands and placed the tip of his quill on the inside cover, directly above the space where she’d stabbed it over Varric’s lap. _From one hero to another,_ he wrote without a hint of irony. _Garrett Hawke._

Cassandra read it over with a soft smile, cradling the spine of the book in her palm.

Later, Hawke found Varric in the tavern, nursing a generous mug of ale.

“I saw the strangest thing today,” said the dwarf. “My best friend and the woman who threatened my life strolling around Skyhold, _talking_.”

Hawke took a sip of Varric’s ale. “She’s really quite lovely, Varric. The way you talked about her, I thought she’d be less agreeable than an ogre. But she only growled at me once.”

Varric laughed at that. “What can I say? When a woman nearly stabs you in the crotch after forcing you into an interrogation, you can’t help but be a little embittered about it.”

“Fair enough,” said Hawke. He drummed his fingers along the tabletop. “How are you holding up? I expect we’ll be headed to Crestwood soon now that the Inquisitor’s on the return from Halamshiral.”

Varric gave him a sidelong glance. “You know what I miss?”

“If you say fighting off gangs in Lowtown at midnight, half-naked and drunk off our asses, I’m leaving.”

“Don’t pretend that wasn’t one of the best nights of your life, Hawke. We came, we saw, and we annihilated that game of Wicked Grace. We dined on lobster for weeks!”

They laughed heartily at that, harder still when Varric remembered Merrill trailing behind them, carrying their discarded clothes from the strip round in her arms. When they’d managed to settle down, Hawke put a hand on Varric’s shoulder and said, “Alright, tell me really. What do you miss?”

“Honestly, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but: pirating.”

Hawke gaped at him. “You always said you hated it! Seasickness and all that.”

“But think of all the things that went along with it,” Varric said, eyes glimmering with the memory of their time aboard _The Siren’s Call II_. “You and me. Daisy and the elf. Rivaini at the helm. Going wherever we pleased, whenever it pleased us. And all that gold from the slaver vessels, Hawke! We had a king’s fortune between the five of us.”

He sighed. “I never understood what Isabela was talking about with all those overtures on freedom and the sea. But I think I get it now. And, Andraste’s ass, I miss it.”

Hawke did, too. He’d thought about it many times since they all went their separate ways. Once they’d gotten Aveline and Donnic to safety, settled Anders into hiding with his old Warden companions, and sent Carver on his way to Orlais, their little family had quite literally sailed off into the sunset. And though it didn’t last, those two years were among the happiest of Hawke’s life. Now, with the world going to shit, he’d give anything to return to that time again.

“We could go back when this is over,” he said. “Now that Isabela’s with the Raiders again, she might be up for a little privateering for Kirkwall.”

Varric hummed. “You think the elf would be in favor of that?”

“Rescuing slaves and sending their captors to the bottom of the ocean?” Hawke chuckled. “I think he’d be bloody delighted. And if this business with the Wardens goes further south than it already has, I’m sure Carver could be convinced to join us. Merrill, too. They’re a package deal these days. And imagine us all reporting in to Aveline! She wouldn’t know what to make of it!”

“If we get that far, Hawke,” Varric said, “remind me to take it up with Rivaini.”

Hawke’s brows knit together. “If we get that far? You aren’t sure we’ll make it out alive?”

Varric stood and crossed to one of the tavern windows, Hawke at his heels. Outside, Sera was perched on the Iron Bull’s shoulders, attempting to climb through the roof of the kitchen. Cole was watching them, crosslegged in the grass, a serene smile on his face.

“I never considered myself a pessimist,” Varric said finally. “But sometimes I wonder…”

“How any of this could end well?”

Varric nodded. Through the window, they watched as Sera managed to clamber onto the roof and let out a whoop in victory. At the same moment, Madame Vivienne began strolling down the steps from the throne room. But upon seeing what Sera and Bull were up to, she immediately turned on her heel and went back indoors.

“I guess we won’t know until it happens,” Hawke said. “But, for what it’s worth, I think this is all going to end up just as it’s meant to be. I have to believe that.”

“Did Cassandra put the fear of the Maker in your heart today, too?” Varric asked. The emotions that had previously darkened his features were beginning to dissipate.

“A little faith never hurt,” said Hawke. “Now, I’m not certain the Maker wants us to be pirates again. But I’d like to think He wants us to live.”

Varric placed his hand on Hawke’s arm. “I hope you’re right. And if not, I don’t intend to go out without a fight. We’ll make it a damn good one.”

“As if there was any chance we wouldn’t.”

But as he pulled Varric into an embrace (which the dwarf thoroughly protested, squirming and muttering about reputations to uphold), Hawke felt the weight of Fenris’s letter in his pocket.

For the first time, he wondered if his promises were not as full-proof as he’d thought.

_____

Hawke jogged down the stone halls of Weisshaupt, ignoring the curious glances of passing recruits, until he stumbled across the curved entryway to the fabled Warden library. Carvings of griffons and ancient heraldries stretched across the walls, golden in the afternoon light and the faint glow of the iron chandeliers above. Books from every age and every nation filled the shelves to excess. Scrolls of unimaginable value littered the wooden tables. To anyone else, the sight would have been breathtaking. But Hawke was too transfixed by the figure sitting in the center of it all.

Fenris was curled in front of a stained glass window, an enormous and yellowing text in his lap. He was focused intently on the page, lips forming the words as he read them. His hair was longer, his clothes more weatherworn. But he looked well. Healthy. Nightmare was wrong. Fenris had been in no danger after all.

Hawke did his best to collect himself, then struck a casual pose against the doorframe, smiling at how utterly unnoticed he’d gone.

“Good book?” he asked, shattering the silence.

The tome fell from Fenris’s hands and onto the flagstoned floor.

Though it could only have been a fraction of a second, time itself seemed to slow. Fenris rose from the window seat, brushed the hair from his eyes, and gazed at Hawke with thinly-veiled disbelief. Had he really doubted Hawke would come?

Before the thought could properly take shape, Hawke was jolted into the present by Fenris suddenly striding towards him, muttering in Tevene, then in the common tongue: “—thinking you can leave for the blighted Anderfels without so much as a letter, hearing the news from Varric bloody _Tethras_ , Hawke, you—you—“

But they had now reached each other, and whatever else there was to say could wait.

Hawke bent low to kiss Fenris, folding one arm around his waist while the other travelled up to cup his cheek. Fenris wound his fingers through Hawke’s hair, tugging him impossibly closer. They nearly crashed back into the window seat with the force of it and sent Fenris’s forgotten book skittering across the floor as they struggled to find their balance. Even with the separation of time and distance, they still knew how to kiss one another with everything they had, tenderly and passionately and thoroughly enough to make them both tremble.

“Five months,” Fenris muttered between the insistent presses of his mouth. “And almost no correspondence during the last. I should be - _mmh_ \- hitting you, not kissing you.”

“Hit me later,” Hawke insisted. “Kiss me now.”

And Fenris was eager enough to comply, but still Hawke knew he owed him an apology and then some. “I _am_ sorry,” he said. He kissed Fenris’s chin, his nose, trailed his lips from one cheekbone to the other. “I didn’t mean to be gone that long. I didn’t want to be.”

Fenris took Hawke’s face in his hands. “I know. And I trust that you had your reasons. But, as further proof that you’ve driven the last of my sanity away, I don’t need to hear them right now.”

Oh. Hawke knew _that_ look.

“And what might you require instead?” he asked with a grin, drawing the elf closer.

Fenris chuckled in that damnably low voice and Hawke was just considering pressing him up against a sturdy-looking bookcase in the corner when a sudden pointed "ahem" scattered them apart.

Kelani was standing in the entryway, not even bothering to hide her smirk. Though she was literally dwarfed by the imposing stone arches, there was nothing but a know-it-all confidence in her stance. Hawke would never hear the end of this.

“Timing, Kelani,” he sighed. “You’re bad at it.”

“Subjective,” she replied with a shrug. “Now do you want that bath or not? We’ve got a room ready for you. And, Fenris, you can move your possessions there as well.”

“Apologies, but have we met?” Fenris asked.

“Technically, no.”

He turned to Hawke, eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”

“Only that I pined for you so strongly and so deeply, that it was impossible for her not to gain some vague understanding of who you were.”

“Was he like this the entire time you travelled together?” Fenris asked, addressing Kelani.

“Worse, actually,” she replied.

Fenris stepped forward and shook the dwarf’s hand. “Then I thank you for not killing him and leaving him in the desert.”

“Us Wardens are all about sacrifice,” Kelani said, covering Fenris’s hand with both of her own. The gesture brought a smile to Hawke’s lips. “But we can have real introductions later. I happen to know for a fact that Hawke still has sand in his hair.”

“It’s true,” Hawke said cheerfully. He felt buoyant with the long-awaited relief of seeing Fenris again.

“Then you’d best lead the way,” Fenris told Kelani, reaching out to interlace his fingers with Hawke’s as they left the library behind.

All things considered, their assigned quarters were of a much higher standard than Hawke had expected. Though they had to climb several flights of steep, winding stairs to get there, the room was spacious and warm, furnished with everything they needed to block out the afternoon wind and the evening chill. It also opened to a small courtyard lined with stunted apple trees, beyond which a view that stretched to the very borders of the Anderfels could be observed.

Once Fenris’s possessions were relocated, Kelani left them to their business with a wink and a salute in Hawke’s direction. He waved her off, shaking his head fondly before going to examine the bathtub. He noted with no small hint of joy that it was filled to the brim with fresh hot water.

“This is much nicer than the room they offered me,” Fenris groused as he watched a pair of small, brown birds dart through the miniature orchard.

Hawke joined him at the window and embraced him from behind. “Probably because you were _mean_ ,” he teased.

“Hmph.”

“A little surly, maybe?”

“Well…”

Hawke laughed again and kissed him loudly on the cheek. “They just don’t know how to appreciate your unconventional charms like I do.”

Fenris wrinkled his nose. “Perhaps you can finish appreciating me _after_ you’ve washed up?”

“You know, I don’t think I’ve heard this many deprecating comments on my hygiene since that wyvern hunt at Chateau Haine,” Hawke said as he retracted his arms from Fenris’s middle and began unfastening his cloak.

“Which says quite a bit,” Fenris remarked wryly, “considering you were covered in wyvern shit at the time.”

They both chuckled fondly at the memory until a comfortable silence fell between them. Hawke toed off his boots while Fenris collected the soaps and oils Kelani left for them. After he'd managed to shed the outermost layers of his dusty traveling clothes, he noticed that Fenris was watching him perplexedly.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“It’s just…” Fenris paused and shook his head. “I feel as though there’s so much I should say to you, and you to me, but I’ve no idea where to begin.”

Truth be told, Hawke wasn’t keen on relaying the details of his travels so soon, particularly because he wasn’t certain how they’d be received. Fenris had already expressed trust in the choices Hawke made, but would he hold on to that sentiment?

Aware of the word _coward_ rattling around in his brain, Hawke gave Fenris a reassuring smile and said, “You’ll hear the whole story soon enough, but I’d prefer to practice it on the Wardens first if you don’t mind. You, however, can share anything you like. Or nothing, if you’d rather.”

Luckily for him, Fenris was willing to leave it at that for the moment. Hawke finished undressing and made his way to the bath, aware of Fenris’s eyes on him. He was probably searching for new scars, remnants of injuries he wasn’t around to prevent; but Hawke hoped part of his interest was spurred by more pleasant thoughts.

Though they boasted a great deal of intimacy in every aspect of their relationship, Hawke couldn’t pretend he hadn’t missed the more physical manifestations of it during his time away. It had been so long since they’d held each other, and he found himself suddenly itching for that contact again. Perhaps he could persuade Fenris that the tub was big enough for two.

And at that moment, like he’d heard the thought as clearly as if Hawke had spoken it aloud, Fenris shrugged out of his shirt and tossed it in the vicinity of the bed. “I plan on joining you,” he said warmly. “ _After_ you’ve had a few rinses.”

It did, in fact, take multiple scrubbings to remove the last of the sand, dust, and grime from Hawke’s skin.“That’s three weeks’ worth of filth,” he declared somewhat proudly. “I haven’t had a proper washing since Churneau!”

“Ugh,” said Fenris.

When the water ran clear again, Fenris lathered up his hands with the oils and began massaging them gently through Hawke’s hair. Hawke hadn’t asked him to do it, and the knowledge that Fenris was helping him bathe simply because he wanted to sent a rush of affection through the core of him. Hawke pressed a kiss to the tender spot at the crook of Fenris’s arm. The elf responded with a soft hum, and circled his fingers over Hawke’s temples.

“So, how did you manage to beat me here, exactly?” Hawke asked after he’d rinsed the oils from his hair.

“A very fast horse.”

Hawke began scrubbing at his beard. “Where did you manage to find one? Aveline hasn’t started collecting them, has she?”

Fenris rose from his kneeling position beside the tub and unceremoniously slid his pants off and onto the floor. Hawke was so distracted by the sudden appearance of glorious, bare skin that he nearly missed Fenris’s muttered “I stole it”.

“Whatever did you do that for?”

“I was in a hurry,” Fenris replied with a shrug. “When I received Varric’s letter, you were already on your way here. I had to leave immediately if I wanted to find you before you journeyed back to the Free Marches. Thankfully, the Nevarran route has terrain more suitable for horseback than the roads you took.”

“You could’ve waited in Kirkwall. It’s not like I didn’t have every intention of meeting you there once I’d finished up with the Wardens. Not that I’m complaining, but why did you come?”

Fenris took that moment to join Hawke in the bath. He submersed himself completely beneath the water and resurfaced just inches from Hawke’s face, whereupon he wound his arms around the mage’s neck and pressed their lips together. It was no less loving, no less meaningful than the kisses they’d shared in the library; but Hawke tasted the hunger behind it this time and felt a pleasant shudder ripple down his spine.

“Because,” Fenris said once he’d kissed his fill, “I couldn’t bear to wait any longer.”

Hawke smoothed his fingers over Fenris’s brows, down his cheeks. “How is it that you seem to know what I need without ever having asked?”

“ _Amatus_ ,” Fenris said fondly. “I learned that skill from you.”

After they’d settled into each other’s arms, wonderfully pliant from the steam and bathwater, Hawke asked, “Other than the unsatisfactory lodging, what’s Weisshaupt been like?”

“So many mages,” Fenris grumbled, burying his damp nose into the crease of Hawke’s neck. “Fresh ones, too.”

Hawke chuckled. “You weren’t planning on eating them were you?”

“No,” admitted Fenris. “But I think they’re all afraid I might, nonetheless.”

“Which is exactly what you wanted.”

“Of course. It’s nice having the library to myself all day.”

“You stole it from them!” Hawke laughed. “I’ll have to have Kelani make an announcement that the broody elf will _not_ , in fact, be consuming any unwitting mages who dare entire his realm.”

“Spoilsport,” said Fenris. “Though I doubt they’ll see much humor in it. I expect they’ll be put through the Joining soon.”

Hawke ran his fingers idly through the wet hair framing Fenris’s face. He thought of Carver, of the acute panic he’d felt in the Deep Roads not knowing if his little brother would live to see another year.

“But we should talk of more agreeable things,” Fenris said, reading his thoughts again. “Aveline and Donnic will be celebrating their anniversary soon. We ought to get a gift for them. Isabela suggested something having to do with copper marigolds but I’m not keen on facing Aveline’s wrath. Merrill seems to think another dog is a good idea, and Carver agrees with her of course.”

“You know, I’m quite jealous you’ve gotten to spend so much time with everyone,” said Hawke. “It’s been too long since I last touched Aveline’s biceps, especially.”

Fenris heaved a happy sigh. “I admit that their companionship was one good thing about your absence. And if you tell them I said that, I’ll never speak to you again.”

“Duly noted.”

“I think it would be nice to go back there once your business is done…”

“Anywhere you want, Fenris,” Hawke said sincerely. “So long as I’m with you it doesn’t much matter to me.”

Fenris gazed at him for a moment, searching his face for something Hawke couldn’t put a name to, then leaned forward to kiss him deeply, sweeping his tongue across Hawke’s lips with intent. Hawke gathered him up, slick and supple beneath the water, and set his hands to work, caressing them down Fenris’s back, circling the dips at the base of his spine, extending lower still to—

A sharp knock at the door earned one very loud, very frustrated groan from Fenris, who pressed his face against Hawke’s neck and muttered something unfavorable in Tevene.

“Pardon the interruption, Champion,” a voice on the other side of the door said. It was Sulwe. “The Chamberlain of the Grey would like a word with you.”

“Is there a polite way of saying I’m too busy to debrief anyone seeing as I’m about to ravish my lover?” Hawke whispered to Fenris.

He considered this, then began trailing his lips down Hawke’s throat. “No, but who said anything about being polite?”

Flawless logic if Hawke had ever heard it, but he had a feeling Sulwe would be less than amused. She struck him as a woman not to be trifled with.

With a groan, he gently shifted out of Fenris’s grasp and announced, “I’ll be there in just a moment.”

“Very good, Champion,” said Sulwe and her footsteps faded from beyond the door.

Hawke rose from the bath and reached for a towel to dry himself with while Fenris leaned back, looking unamused. “Oh, don’t give me that. It’s what I came here for, after all.”

“I seem to recall you saying you came for the First Warden, not the old one who loses his train of thought within minutes of opening his mouth. Best of luck with that, by the way.”

“Oh, did you make a friend?” Hawke teased, which earned him a splash of bathwater across his thighs.

“A friend who made a fuss over me digging around in the archives,” Fenris grunted. “It’s not as if anyone _else_ was going to read them.”

Hawke couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of him. Maker, he loved this man. When he said as much, Fenris made a quiet sound of surprise.

“Oh,” he said. Even after all this time, the sentiment still brought a flush to his cheeks. “I love you as well.”

Hawke grinned and began dressing himself in the fresh clothes Kelani left him. They were by no means high fashion, but they were soft and dry. The tunic was red, too. She must have picked up on his affinity for the color.

Once he was dressed, Hawke knelt beside the bathtub and brushed his lips across Fenris’s temple. “I’ll see you at dinner, yes? And then it’ll just be the two of us for the rest of the evening. No interruptions.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Fenris said and tugged Hawke down by the collar for another kiss.

Needless to say, he was significantly late to his meeting.

The Chamberlain of the Grey spoke with Hawke for several hours, listening intently to every detail of the corruption within the Orlesian Wardens. He had more or less expected foul play; apparently Warden-Commander Clarel had been ignoring letters from Weisshaupt for months before the incident. The rest of the news he took with grim acceptance. He wouldn’t be the one to make any sort of decision on the Grey Wardens’ next move, but the chamberlain seemed determined to rectify what had happened whether the First Warden agreed or not. In that, Hawke found reason for relief.

Kelani was waiting for him in the great hall when dinner hours began. She’d commandeered one of the many long, wooden tables in the room and waved him over. Two plates of food were set across from her, presumably for him and Fenris.

“How’d it go?” she asked once Hawke had taken a seat.

“Well, it was good practice for the First Warden, at any rate,” said Hawke. “I have a feeling he and the chamberlain don’t always see eye to eye.”

“You’d be right. Just bend yourself beneath the weight of his obvious superiority and you should be fine.”

“Well, he sounds like a terribly endearing fellow.”

Kelani clicked her tongue. “Speaking of which, Fenris seems nice. The lyrium tattoos were a surprise, but still.”

“He gets that a lot,” Hawke laughed. “By the way, do me a favor and don’t tell him about how you made me cry yesterday. He’ll never let me live it down.”

“Who says I haven’t already?” Kelani said dramatically. “You were in the chamberlain’s study for quite some time…”

Before Hawke could retort, Fenris appeared in the entryway. Kelani waved him over and Hawke noted with a grin that he was in possession of a sizable bottle of wine.

“I pinched it from the kitchens,” he explained. “You know how I feel about ale.”

Hawke wrapped an arm around his waist once he’d seated himself on the bench. “I’m not sure when exactly you became such a notorious thief, but I’d bet a few good sovereigns that this was Isabela’s influence.”

“I had to pass the time somehow,” Fenris smirked.

Over the course of their meal, Kelani and Fenris proved Hawke’s theory that they’d get along famously. Granted, much of it was at his own expense; but it was good to hear Fenris laugh, even if it was prompted by Kelani’s stories of his misadventures during their travels, especially her final count of how many times Hawke fell from his horse.

(Seventeen was the actual number, but Kelani graciously rounded it down to fifteen.)

They laughed and talked and teased one another for the better part of an hour, until their plates had been cleared and half of Fenris’s pilfered wine had been drunk. Kelani stood, patting her belly, and swaggered off to the kitchens for seconds.

“I like her,” said Fenris.

“Me too,” Hawke replied, and took his hand in his beneath the table.

A few minutes later, a waifish elf passed by them and Hawke stared at what could only be described as claw marks knifing across her forearms. Fenris waited until she was out of earshot, then whispered, “Rumor has it she was one of the mages who discovered a clutch of griffon eggs in the desert.”

“Griffons,” said Hawke. “As in the fabled Warden mounts previously thought to be _extinct?_ ”

The elf had taken her seat at a table towards the wall beside a woman with grey-streaked hair and another elf who was lounging with legs propped up on the bench. She seemed unaware of his attention and proceeded to talk with her comrades, their heads bowed close together. They must have been the group Kelani mentioned earlier, the ones who’d run off to Red Bride’s Grave.

“Extinct no more,” Fenris replied. “I’ve half a mind to see them for myself. Weisshaupt is still in possession of its roosts. If there are indeed newly hatched griffons in the fortress, it’s likely they’re hidden there.”

“Tomorrow,” Hawke agreed. “Varric’s not going to believe this.”

Kelani returned from the kitchen, plate piled high, and their conversation returned to its previous theme. Hawke wondered how much she knew about the griffons, and if she’d be willing to share that knowledge. But it was a question for another time.

They didn’t finish their evening together until long after the dining hall had emptied and the murmurings of wandering recruits had faded into silence. Hawke took Kelani’s hand and kissed it dashingly, even as she tried to shake him off. Behind him, he heard Fenris give a snort of laughter.

“Goodnight, you two,” she said when they parted in the now quiet, moonlit hall. “We’ll get into more trouble tomorrow.”

“Looking forward to it,” Fenris replied with a smile.

The dwarf gave her customary salute and headed off towards the dormitories. With nothing left to keep them there, Hawke and Fenris followed suit, and began their slow ascent up the steps to their room, hands intertwined. When they reached the door, Hawke gently pushed Fenris up against it and started pressing light, open-mouthed kisses down his neck. Fenris sighed in pleasure, drawing Hawke close.

“Should we take this inside?” Hawke whispered cheekily, sliding his fingers down Fenris’s stomach to the laces of his trousers.

Fenris leaned back against the doorframe and peered at him through the darkness. He seemed to be deciding something, hands twitching at Hawke’s waist.

“I think,” he said, “I would like to hear what happened while you were away.”

Hawke blinked. “What?”

“I…Varric mentioned something in his letter. I didn’t want to bring it up right away, but I can’t stop thinking about it, Hawke. I’ve been…worried about you.”

“What did he say?” Hawke asked. He was beginning to wonder if Fenris knew the details of what happened at Adamant far better than he let on.

“He wasn’t specific,” Fenris replied. “He simply said that a battle towards the end of your service with the Inquisition was particularly hard on you. I thought perhaps it was an injury, but I found none today.”

Hawke realized now that there was going to be little choice in the matter. He would never lie to Fenris and he couldn’t keep stalling, especially now that he knew about the elf’s concern. Like it or not, Hawke would be telling his story tonight.

“Come on,” he said. “You should probably hear it all from the beginning.”

They settled into bed, illuminated by a single candle. The Wardens had rules against burning wax after hours. It was a difficult commodity to come by, especially since the journey between Weisshaupt and Hossberg was notoriously perilous. Supplies were sacred there and putting anything to waste was a bigger offense than most.

Hawke didn’t mind the dimness, however. It, combined with the pale moonlight filtering in through the windows, gave a certain sense of peace to the room. And he needed all the comfort he could get.

Wrapped in Hawke’s arms, Fenris listened carefully as the mage recounted the steps that led him to Skyhold and every moment afterwards, voicing his opinion only in soft sounds of understanding or slight disapproval. The corruption within the Grey Warden ranks, in particular, darkened his expression. But he made no move to interrupt, for which Hawke was grateful. He worried that, if he stopped at any point and lost his momentum, he might never be able to explain what happened in the Fade.

As a result, he barreled through the mess at the ritual tower in the Western Approach and the fighting at Adamant, including the revelation of what Corypheus had done to the Wardens, the dragon’s demise, and Clarel’s sacrifice. By the time he described the descent into the Nightmare demon’s realm and their subsequent search for the Inquisitor’s memories, his heart was racing. Fenris had noticed this and, as a result, was pressed in close, trailing a soothing hand down Hawke’s arm. But even he began to lose his composure when Hawke reluctantly voiced the lies Nightmare had taunted him with.

“It said you were going to die, like everyone else I cared about,” Hawke said darkly. “I laughed at it, got Varric to chuckle, too. But it was…it made things difficult for me moving forward. The Fade was different this time. It wasn’t like when we rescued Feynriel. It was in our heads more, manipulating our thoughts and emotions. I really believed it, Fenris. At some points it felt like you were already gone. ”

Fenris crawled into his lap and nudged their foreheads together. “I hope you gave it a slow death, Hawke. I hope you made it beg for mercy.”

A pause.

“Not quite, I’m afraid.”

Fenris looked at him quizzically. “What happened, then? How did you escape?”

Hawke quickly explained how they’d followed the Divine spirit towards the rift only to be confronted by the monstrous spider demon. He placed his hands on Fenris’s waist to steady himself.

“Varric and the others made it out before the…thing…appeared. And then it was just me, Stroud, and the Inquisitor. It was clear that someone had to remain behind if there was a chance for even one of us to survive. I-I heard myself volunteer, but Stroud insisted that the duty was his. And then he was charging off to fight the demon and…”

Hawke trailed off, aware that Fenris had suddenly come to unnatural stillness. His eyes were focused on a corner of the bedsheets, hands balled into fists at his knees.

“You volunteered,” Fenris repeated slowly, like he was trying to solve a riddle hidden in the words themselves. “To stay behind.”

“Fenris…”

“To _sacrifice_ yourself.”

Before Hawke could fully comprehend what was happening, Fenris was tearing himself from his grasp and stalking towards the courtyard door.

“Fenris, wait!” Hawke called, scrambling after him.

He paused, shoulders hunched, before slamming his fist against the wall. Hawke flinched.

“You promised me,” he said in a low voice. “You swore you’d come back.”

“And I did,” Hawke said gently. “Just come back to bed, please. Let me explain.”

When Fenris spun around, there were tears in his eyes. “And yet you offered yourself up to die! Tell me, how would that have gotten you home safely to me?”

“I didn’t have much choice! My fate would have been no different if neither of us had volunteered to stay. And I was already struggling to remind myself that you were still alive, that Corypheus wouldn’t kill you if we failed. So when the demon attacked, I thought—”

“That I would be better off?” Fenris supplied in disbelief. “That logic is what brought you to the Inquisition in the first place, and now we’ve seen how well _that_ turned out!”

“That’s not fair,” Hawke said sharply. Maker help him, everything was falling apart.

“I don’t want to be fair!” Fenris shouted back. “I don’t want to be reasonable! And how can you expect me to be when you insist on making your decisions alone, supposedly for my benefit?”

“I…” Hawke didn’t now what to say. The fight was draining out of him as quickly as it had come. “I’m sorry, Fenris. You have to believe that I’m…”

He watched helplessly as Fenris uttered a soft curse at the tears now running down his cheeks. He braced himself, head low, and walked swiftly from the room.

“ _Fenris!_ ”

But the door had already slammed shut behind him, leaving nothing but a sudden gust of cool night air in its wake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I owe a lot of insights into Weisshaupt and its structure to Liane Merciel, who wrote the most recent Bioware novel, _Last Flight_. Sulwe and the other specifically described Wardens (minus Kelani) are also her creations.
> 
> Thank you so much to those who've left comments thus far; it means a great deal to me. Update will hopefully come before the weekend. In the meantime, let's cry about elves on [tumblr](http://www.astrariums.tumblr.com).


	3. Chapter 3

_Adamant Fortress, 9:41 Dragon_  

If anyone were to ask Hawke when things well and truly went to shit, he’d probably tell them it was some time during his free fall into the Fade.  

When he, the Inquisitor, and her companions, were thrown from the battlements, Hawke had two very distinct thoughts: one, that this would be an utterly disappointing way to die and two, that if any shapeshifting abilities (preferably dragon themed) were ever to manifest themselves in his magic, the time was most certainly now.

Being that he was not about to accept the first, and the second seemed just as unlikely as when he’d first made the wish, Hawke got a firm grip on his staff and began a running list of things he could do to prevent his untimely demise.

Fire and ice weren’t going to help him here. Manipulating the rubble already underneath them seemed more likely to end in a broken neck than a safe escape. Spirit magic was not his forte, but Hawke supposed he could attempt a force field to absorb the damage from the fall. If he was lucky, he could pull Varric into it, too. The elven mage, Solas, might be able to cast a similar barrier around himself, the Inquisitor, and Cassandra. Nothing was certain about it, but Hawke was willing to give it a try.

But before he could shout out his plan, Hawke watched in amazement as the Inquisitor thrust her palm out in front of her and tore the air apart. The mark on her hand flashed violently and a blinding, green light enveloped them all within it. For a moment, Hawke felt nothing. And then he was on his feet, staring at an endless stretch of bleak, sickly terrain. Red lyrium spiked out viciously from the rocks and the acrid scent of decay permeated from the mist hovering over the ground. The Fade, Hawke thought grimly, looking as scenic and inviting as ever.

And it proved to be as such. Hawke had no idea how much time passed as their group of six journeyed through the realm, dodging floating rocks, striking down demons, and following the cryptic instructions of a spirit. But as more and more foreboding revelations made themselves known, the atmosphere turned increasingly sinister. Hawke felt the hum of idle spirits at the back of his skull, each less innocent and curious than the last. When their party began following the path the Divine spirit left for them, the hum became a voice, clear and sharp.

_Such a brave man_ , it whispered, curling itself around Hawke’s mind. _So strong to keep living when so many of his loved ones have died. I wonder, what would it take to break such a man? Could he survive even one more loss? Two? The elf, perhaps…Yes, his death would carve quite a pretty chasm through this brave man’s heart._

Hawke exhaled sharply and willed his thoughts to centralize themselves on the path in front of him. 

_Oh, yes,_ another voice giggled. It was softer and slower than the last. _And you think of him so_ ** _very_** _much. What would you do to keep him safe, hm? How far would you go to see him, to touch him, once again? I could help, you know. Just a little deal. Just a tiny prick of blood. I could give you enough power to ensure nothing comes between you two again. What do you say?_

_Just a little deal_ , the first voice repeated.

_The tiniest prick of blood,_ a third demon echoed.

“You alright, Hawke?” Varric asked suddenly.

Hawke opened his eyes, unaware that he’d stopped moving. The rest of the group had travelled several paces ahead.

“Peachy,” said Hawke. Maker, his head hurt. 

“You’re hearing them, aren’t you?” Varric scowled. “Demons.”

“As long as we keep moving, I’ll be fine.” Hawke wasn’t too convinced of this, but it felt good to watch Varric relax, at least.

“I could always start singing,” the dwarf offered. “Might drown them out.”

Hawke smiled weakly. “When I get _that_ , desperate, Varric, I’ll let you know.”

They continued to wander, fighting fearlings with dour determination; the voices were still present in Hawke’s mind, but the fighting helped keep them at bay. That is, until Nightmare discovered them at last. The demonic whispers were indeed silenced, but something far worse replaced their malicious cacophony. 

Nightmare started with the Inquisitor, speaking with feigned benevolence, a welcome host to their intrusion. It worked its way insidiously through their party, digging out their individual fears and stringing them up for everyone to see. Though they protested, hurling insults and vowing to strike the demon down, Hawke could see without a doubt that they were all being affected by its words. Their shoulders hunched a little lower to the ground, their faces were downcast. And when Nightmare preyed on Varric, using Hawke as a tool to unsettle him with, Hawke knew without a doubt that he was next.

“Did you think you mattered, Hawke?” said Nightmare, inevitably. “Did you think anything you ever did mattered? You couldn’t even save your city. How could you expect to strike down a god?”

Varric tensed beside him and Hawke felt Cassandra’s eyes fall upon him in concern.

“ _Fenris_ is going to die. Just like your family, and everyone you ever cared about.”

Bile rose in the back of Hawke’s throat. The sound of Fenris’s name - spoken so often in the darkness against his lover’s throat, whispered at the apex of his spine - sent ripples of disgust through him when uttered with such smugness from the demon’s lips. But underneath Hawke’s revulsion lay something much more dangerous: doubt. He threw up a cavalier reply to Nightmare, drawing a smirk from Varric. But when he was only answered with silence, Hawke knew the demon had sensed his fear. Somewhere, it was grinning.

Hawke stalked to the front of the group until he was nearly at the Inquisitor’s heels. Cassandra fell into step beside him, one hand resting over the pommel of her blade. “It will be good, Hawke, to slay this creature at your side,” she said.

“Looking forward to it, Seeker,” he grunted, eyes fixed firmly on the rift shimmering in the distance.

She might have said something else, but Hawke’s mind was not solely his own any longer. Spirits were flitting in and out again, hovering at his temples.

_Fenris is going to die_ , they whispered. 

_Or has he already?_ another asked with false curiosity. _You’ve been gone for quite some time now. Are you so sure he still breathes?_

_And even if he does, do you really think it will be for much longer? You haven’t stopped Corypheus, after all. If you fail, it’s only a matter of time._

_So it actually means very little whether he currently lives or not,_ the first demon sighed. _Either way, you’ve lost him._

Hawke bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. He didn’t want to believe it, but if these spirits were echoes of Nightmare and Nightmare knew even a fraction of what Corypheus planned, their taunts might hold some truth. His hands began to shake at the thought, but he had to be strong enough to stop this. He had to be strong enough to protect Fenris at whatever cost.

In the end, the path laid out before him seemed clear enough.

The spider demon loomed in front of them, its pinchers snapping together, dripping with ichor. Hawke watched as Varric, Cassandra, and Solas disappeared through the rift, and was steeled by the knowledge that they, at least, had made it out alive.

Beside him, the Inquisitor was breathing hard, already reaching for her dual blades. Stroud looked at him and they both nodded. If anyone was escaping with their life, it would have to be her.

“We need to clear a path,” Stroud said, reaching out to stay the Inquisitor’s hand.

She stared at him until the realization of what he was suggesting sent her gaze to the ground. She would’ve fought to the death, Hawke realized, had the fate of Thedas rested on anyone else’s shoulders.

_Live or die, live or die_ , a demon sang. _It doesn’t really matter. Someone has to stay._

_Such a brave man,_ a more familiar voice whispered, the first Hawke had heard in this realm.

_You’ve lost him already_ , they said in unison.

“Go,” Hawke said suddenly, surprised to hear the sound of his own voice. “I’ll cover you.”

Stroud shook his head. “No. You were right. The Grey Wardens caused this. A Warden must—”

A part of Hawke was screaming for him to stop, to think about what he was saying. He had family still, he had Fenris. He couldn’t leave them behind. He didn’t want to die. 

“A Warden must help them rebuild. That’s _your_ job. Corypheus is mine.” 

This had always been inevitable, hadn’t it? He’d told Fenris he would do anything to keep him safe. Maybe this was always meant to be. Maybe—

“Stroud,” the Inquisitor said. 

Hawke blinked, uncertain of what was happening. Stroud was saying something, smiling sadly at him, raising his blade. The Inquisitor looked on in stony resolve, but her throat was moving in unspent emotion. She had just saved Hawke’s life, and signed Stroud’s death sentence in the process.

That man is going to die for me, thought Hawke, and I’ve done nothing but criticize him. Maker, how did this happen?

But then the Inquisitor was tearing off ahead of him, shouting for him to follow. In a daze, Hawke did. When he dove through the rift, the echoes of Stroud’s sword connecting with the demon’s flesh at his back, Hawke remained on the ground for several seconds, gasping for breath. 

What did I do? he wondered numbly, hands splayed over the stone beneath him. What in Andraste’s name did I do?

_____

  
When the echo of the door slamming shut no longer rang in his ears, Hawke sat on the edge of the bed and looked at his hands, at a loss. A part of him had to have known this would happen; foolishly, he’d expected Fenris to understand. And how could he when Hawke himself was still trying to make sense of it?

Though Hawke was, by nature, stubborn and competitive, two traits that manifested themselves in a dogged determination to win whatever arguments he got himself into, he knew that Fenris had every right to be furious with him. More than that, Hawke knew without doubt that the hurt he’d caused was very, very real. He’d seen it in the markings, which had just faintly begun to glow before the elf fled the room. Fenris may have focused his feelings into anger, sharp-edged and explosive; but beneath it was only pain, the ache of a nearly-broken promise and perhaps even the misguided belief that Hawke did not care enough to fight for them both.

This wasn’t true, had never been true. But Hawke had given Fenris reason to doubt. And for that, he could only fall on his knees in supplication and pray that Fenris would somehow understand and forgive.

He rose from the bed and reached for his cloak. If his previous nights in the Anderfels were any indication, the air outside would already be bitterly cold. Conscious that Fenris had stormed out in nothing but his tunic and leggings, Hawke searched for the elf’s cloak as well and folded it across his arms. With not even a semblance of a plan, he gripped the handle of the door and pushed his way out into the night.

The stunted orchard, with its scraggly branches and paper-thin leaves, looked skeletal beneath the moon. A light breeze was whistling through the courtyard, sweeping dead leaves from the benches that lined it. Fenris was pacing back and forth beneath the stone overhang, illuminated whenever he passed between the pillars and into the starlight, shrouded in darkness whenever he stepped behind them. If anyone else were to see him, they might assume a specter was wandering the grounds. 

Hawke’s breath took shape in front of him as he approached. Fenris sensed his presence immediately and turned to face him, words already forming on his lips. He had been waiting for Hawke to follow. 

“You would have left me,” Fenris said. It wasn’t a shout, but Hawke felt the intensity of it nonetheless. “After everything we’ve been through, all the promises we made to each other, you became the willing sacrifice like it was nothing!" 

Hawke looked at him sadly. “You say that as if I wanted to do it.”

“Didn’t you?”

“No!” said Hawke, thrown by the suggestion. “How can you even think that?”

Fenris barked out a laugh and turned his gaze to the courtyard, arms crossed. “Because I know you, Hawke. Beneath all your humor and charm, your goodness is overwhelmingly apparent. Heroes sacrifice themselves all the time, do they not?”

“There’s a difference between wanting to and having no other choice.”

“There is _always_ a choice,” Fenris snapped. He turned back, eyes ablaze. “You taught me that."  

Whether he was shivering from the cold or distress, Hawke couldn’t tell, but he handed Fenris his cloak anyway. The gesture gave Fenris pause, but practicality eventually won over stubbornness, and he took the garment and fastened it around his neck.

“If there was a choice to be made,” Hawke said, feeling his tone growing heated but too exhausted to stop it, “then it was between staying silent and letting the demon make a meal out of all of us, or ensuring the one person capable of stopping Corypheus lived long enough to do it. We couldn’t let the Inquisitor die there, Fenris. Without her, we’d all be doomed. And then it wouldn’t have mattered if I made it out alive or not.”

Fenris looked at him sharply. “Of course it would have! If it meant I got to hold you just one more time before the end, it would have been worth it.” 

“You know we deserve better than that,” Hawke said earnestly.

“Whether or not that’s true would’ve been rather irrelevant if you’d sacrificed yourself, don’t you think?” Fenris said darkly. “We would have had no time at all then.”

“But you would have. With no other alternative in sight, that was enough for me.”

“And when did I give you the impression that I would ever be interested in a world without you in it?” 

Fenris began pacing again, the hem of his cloak sweeping over the flagstone. “I chose you, Hawke. I have continued to choose you every day since. And for you to throw that choice in my face, to take away that which I need most…” He made a soft, wounded noise. “You thought of me in the Fade, but you did not think of how I would _feel_.”

This is my fault, Hawke thought somberly. The pain in Fenris’s eyes, the way his fists trembled even as he balled them up at his side. Hawke was responsible for all of it, and knowing that made him ache.

“I don’t know what you want me to say..."  

Fenris opened his mouth to speak, closed it, then opened it once more to say, “Help me understand, Hawke. I need to understand why.” 

“I don’t know if I can,” Hawke confessed. 

“ _Try.”_

Hawke turned his palms skyward, as if the Maker might do him a favor for once and drop the answer into his hands. He breathed in and willed the right words to come to him.

“I did what I thought was right,” he said softly. “I made a decision that hurt you and, believe me, that alone might kill me.” 

Fenris winced and Hawke resisted the urge to smack himself. “Sorry! I’m sorry!” he said quickly. “Poor word choice. Oh, Maker, I’ve really cocked this up.”

Hawke took a breath to steady himself, then said, “Next to losing you, my biggest fear is and always will be: being the source of your pain. And now that I’ve done that, I would do anything to take it back. But I can’t, Fenris. Don’t you see? No amount of magic can change what I said and did. I have nothing else to offer you than my apologies. I’m sorry for that, too.”

Something howled in the distance, breaking the silence that followed. Fenris didn’t reply. He was simply taking in what Hawke was saying, giving no impression one way or the other how Hawke’s words were being received.

“What would you like me to do?” Hawke asked, perhaps a bit desperately. “Fall on my knees and beg your forgiveness? I could do that, Fenris. I would do that if you asked. I’d stand out here all night yelling about things neither of us can change if it meant there was a chance of fixing this." 

Fenris exhaled slowly. “I believe you.”

“Then will you tell me how to make this right?” Hawke asked. “Whatever you need, I'll do it."

“I suppose I can only request safeguards for the future,” Fenris said with a sigh. “Should the opportunity arise, I don’t want you sacrificing yourself for me. Fight for a world in which we both can live, but don’t leave me alone in it. Trust that I know what is best for myself, Hawke. I…I need for you to do that above all else.” 

Hawke nodded. “And will you do the same?”

“If it would spare you what I felt tonight, yes,” said Fenris. These words weren’t meant to guilt Hawke for what he’d unwittingly done, however. They were simply the truth.

“Then you have my word.”

“And I have your love, do I not?” Fenris asked quietly. The breeze sent a strand of pale hair across his face and Hawke battled within himself not to reach out and brush it away.

“Yes,” said Hawke without reservation. “All there is for me to give.”

They lapsed into silence again and the wind swirled around them, stealing their breath and casting it out over the distant mountainside. Fenris looked to the orchard and watched a frail leaf quiver on the edge of its branch.  

“If I hadn’t asked,” he said after a moment, “would you have told me what happened in the Fade?”

“Would I have lied, you mean?”

Fenris gave a noncommittal shrug. 

“I was always going to tell you. Though, admittedly, I imagined it would be after I’d reached Kirkwall and after I’d had significant time to make sense of everything. The version of the story you heard tonight was what Varric would probably call a very, very rough draft.” 

This seemed a satisfactory answer to Fenris and he nodded. He wrapped his arms around himself and sighed, “This was…not what I intended. You’re in pain as well and I should recognize that.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Hawke told him. “I’m just glad you’re speaking to me. When you walked out, there was a moment when I thought—” 

“I’m not going anywhere,” said Fenris. “I just need some time to sort through what you’ve said.”

Hawke nodded a bit too eagerly. “Take however long you need. I’ll wait.”

They separated beneath the arches of the walkway, both in shadow. Fenris headed for the orchard, cloak drawn tight around his shoulders, and Hawke made his way indoors. He lit a few more candles, Wardens be damned, then busied himself with turning down the bedsheets, ruffling the pillows, and drawing the curtains tight enough that he couldn’t catch a glimpse of Fenris pacing back and forth through the courtyard. 

When he’d made the room presentable, Hawke sat down at the edge of the bed and resigned himself to a very long wait. He tried not to think of things he could have said or done differently. He tried not to entertain scenarios in which Fenris decided this was too much to brook after all and left him for good. We love each other, he reminded himself, this can’t be the thing that breaks us.

An hour later, the door creaked open.

Hawke looked away from the steadily melting candle beside the bed and watched as Fenris stepped in from the cold, looking shy and uncertain. Hawke stood to greet him and almost laughed at himself for the formality of it. Beneath a tentative smile, he asked, “Are we done fighting now?”

Fenris was in Hawke’s arms not a moment later, nodding fervently as he rose up on his toes to kiss him. Hawke cupped his face gently, murmuring apologies against his lips.

“I shouldn’t have yelled,” Fenris was saying, one hand carding through Hawke’s hair, the other gripping at the fabric between his shoulder blades.

“I never wanted to hurt you,” Hawke said at the same time. 

They both paused to look at each other, and promptly burst into breathless, relieved laughter, shaking their heads fondly and brushing their noses together. Fenris touched Hawke’s face, fingertips barely caressing his skin. “You meant what you said before?”

Hawke nodded. “Nothing like this will ever happen again.”

“And you won’t leave me?” It was barely a whisper across Hawke’s cheek.

“Never. I _love_ you _._ ”

Fenris tilted his forehead against Hawke’s, eyes closed. “Show me.”

Hawke brought their lips together, drawing Fenris close, until the elf made a soft, urgent sound against his mouth and Hawke lifted him up, hands under his thighs, encouraging Fenris to wrap his legs around his waist. Hawke carried him across the threshold, remembering the very first night they shared together; how they’d been unable to stop kissing each other long enough to leave the foyer until Hawke picked Fenris up in a similar fashion and bore him up the stairs to the bedroom. 

In the present moment, Fenris was whispering endearments into the space between each kiss. “ _Amatus_ ,” he said, and Hawke could hear the smile on his lips. “ _Mi soli_ _et stellis, completor meum animulum._ ” 

“Will you ever tell me what that means?” Hawke asked as he pressed Fenris down into the bedsheets. 

“The words are meant to be felt, not told.” Fenris brought his lips to Hawke’s ear, one hand circling the space above his heart, and murmured, “ _Amor eternus, animam meam_ _incende_.”  

The words curled low in Hawke’s stomach, warm and full of intent. Fenris watched his reaction and smiled. “Tell me,” he said, “did you feel that?”

Hawke, who was already finding it difficult to breathe, could only kiss him in reply. 

They undressed each other with practiced efficiency, pausing only to linger at the tender crook of an elbow, the soft space between neck and shoulder. With a flick of his wrist, Hawke extinguished the candles one by one until their bodies, now bare, could only be seen by the light of the stars.

They lay together in the darkness, kissing and caressing, remembering each other again. Finally, finally, thought Hawke. And when Fenris let out a shuddering breath against his lips, Hawke knew he felt the same. It was like relearning the steps to a familiar dance. Sparks of recollection ignited underneath their skin, guiding them both into a proper rhythm.

Hawke pushed any lingering thoughts of their argument away, determined to lose himself here with Fenris. This intimacy was just as important to mending the damage; it spoke in soft whispers and gentle sighs, a tender reminder of their survival, the as of yet unbroken oath they’d made to return to each other again and again without fail. It was, and had always been, a gesture of love.

Hawke followed the lyrium sweeping down Fenris’s neck with eager, reverent lips as their bodies rushed together, hips rising and falling, fingers intertwined. Though they said very little, the conversation of their flesh filled the room. Trust could be spoken in a meeting of eyes in the dark. Affirmation, in the stretch of Fenris’s arm as he searched the bedside table. Desire, as he placed the vial of oil in Hawke’s hand and spread his legs in invitation.

“This is what you want?” Hawke asked. He needed to be certain. 

“ _You_ are what I want,” Fenris replied, voice low and heated in the dark. And at the first tentative brush of Hawke’s fingers, he groaned unashamedly, and repeated his answer again.

He kept his eyes on Hawke throughout, watching every motion in hazy, unfocused bliss, like he wanted to burn the image of Hawke here in this very moment, touching him, wanting him, into his memory forever.

By the time Hawke was pressing inside of him, they were both trembling. Fenris lifted his knees and hooked his ankles at the base of Hawke’s spine, encouraging him, steering him. They were gentle with each other, every rocking motion as smooth and as soft as waves lapping against the shoreline, enough to rustle the sheets and creak the bed frame, but no more. 

Though the pace was slow, the pleasure of it was almost unbearable. Hawke ran his hands, conscious of the many calluses and scars that marred them, down Fenris’s torso, lowered them to grip the elf’s thighs and push them further apart. Fenris moaned, breath hot against Hawke’s ear, and whispered his given name for the first time since they’d reunited. 

“Say that again,” Hawke whispered, smiling down at him with eyes half-closed, hips still rolling gently. 

Fenris was glistening with sweat and his skin flushed even darker underneath the heat of Hawke’s gaze. He leaned up for a kiss, and mouthed the syllables against Hawke’s lips. _Garrett._ A push and a pull, a leaving and a return. 

“Fenris,” Hawke answered. “ _Fenris_.”

After that, they were capable of little more than breathing against each other’s lips, letting soft cries of pleasure fall from one mouth into the other. Hawke could only register the tenderness of it, the wet warmth and intimacy of it, the broken moans Fenris allowed him to hear when he angled his thrusts just so. 

Maker, Hawke had missed this. And the thought that he might never have held Fenris like this again brought tears to his eyes. Fenris noticed, of course, and drew him even closer, until their heartbeats thrummed together. _I am here,_ they seemed to say in tandem. _I remain at your side._

Hours could have passed before they finally began to lose control of the rhythm, hips cantering erratically, the sheets bunching up around their ankles. Hawke reached between them and took Fenris in his hand, watching the lines of lyrium etched across his stomach flicker pale blue. 

“I…I…” Fenris gasped, eyes fixed on Hawke’s, fingers pressed tight into the muscles of his back.

And then he was arching off the bed, a keening cry at his lips, and Hawke watched breathlessly as he broke over the crest of his orgasm, writhing and trembling and moaning Hawke’s name as if it were the only word in the world that mattered. 

Hawke came apart above him, in him, cradling Fenris against his chest as he tensed and shuddered, the corners of his vision going dark. But the sweetest moment came when he opened his eyes to find that it was not a dream. Fenris was there, real in his arms, gazing up at him in wonder, hands already reaching out to hold him.

When everything was still again, Hawke lowered himself back down to the bed and wrapped Fenris in his arms, kissing him tenderly, pleasure still humming under their skin.

“Eternal love, set my soul aflame,” Fenris murmured suddenly. “That’s what I said to you before. It’s from a very old Tevinter poem.”

Hawke brushed the hair from Fenris’s damp forehead so he could press his lips there. “I thought you didn't want to tell me.”

“I can be coy,” said Fenris, earning a chuckle from Hawke. “It’s rare, but it’s been known to happen.”

“And the others? _Stellis_ …I remember that word from your astronomy lessons. Stars, perhaps?” 

Fenris laced their fingers together and tilted their hands back and forth, watching the moonlight paint their skin. “That phrase is part of a pair. I’ll teach it to you one day.” 

Hawke drew the covers up over their shoulders and burrowed into the warmth it provided. Sleep was tugging at the corners of his mind, beckoning him. And he was so desperate for a night of proper rest. And yet…

“Are we alright?” he asked, conscious of Fenris’s hand still folded within his own.

Fenris leaned forward to kiss him, parting his lips to draw breath where Hawke exhaled his own. “We are in love,” he said, “and we are learning. That is enough for me.”

At dawn, Hawke woke to shafts of pale, grey light filtering through the window and onto the bedspread. He and Fenris were still curled into each other, legs tangled and arms thrown across each other’s waists, safe and warm. Hawke brushed his thumb across Fenris’s lips and smiled to himself, content for the first time in months. He had slept peacefully through the night.

Fenris stirred at Hawke’s touch and gave a smile of his own. “I thought I’d dreamt it all,” he murmured, voice soft and wavering with the remnants of sleep. “I was so certain I would wake and you’d be gone.”

Hawke pulled him closer to his chest. “The Maker Himself couldn’t drag me away.”

“Mm. And Andraste?”

“Only if she asked very nicely.” 

Fenris snorted and pressed his nose against the column of Hawke’s throat, where he heaved a long, pleased sigh.

“Sleep,” Hawke told him. “It’s early yet.” 

And they did.

_____

  
_Somewhere in the Amaranthine Ocean, 9:38 Dragon_

“You ever think about getting married, Hawke?”

Hawke turned his gaze from the shimmering azure of the sea to Varric, who was seated quite comfortably on a barrel against the foremast, thumbing through a manuscript. 

He grinned. “Is that a proposal?”

“Please,” Varric chuckled. “With the combined power of our chest hair, the whole world might implode. And that’s not a risk I’m about to take. Besides, Bianca’s the jealous type.”

Hawke pushed himself back from the railing and strolled to the dwarf’s side. It was a slow day on the ship and everyone had more or less resigned themselves to several hours of napping and lounging, enjoying the sunlight and the distant calls of gulls overhead. They would be in Antiva within the week to stock up on supplies and catch wind of any slaver vessels ripe for the plundering. But for now, there was nothing to do but relax. Hawke didn’t know how proper ships conducted themselves, but he was growing increasingly fond of the disciplines of pirates. Or lack thereof.

“So what _did_ you mean?” Hawke asked once he’d settled himself against the mast beside Varric.

“You know. You and the elf.” 

Hawke glanced at the starboard side of the ship, where Fenris was teaching Merrill how to tie knots. They had both grown their hair out some, and the breeze was tangling a few of their longer pieces together. There was a time when Fenris would flinch at the very idea of touching Merrill, but now he seemed not to care as he guided her hands through the loops, adjusting her grip when necessary. Beyond them, Isabela was straddling the bowsprit, kicking her legs over the water.

“We, uh…” Hawke said at last. “We’ve never talked about it.”

Varric raised an eyebrow. “Really? Between passionate overtures about how you’ll never tolerate a world without each other you never once thought to get a ring on his finger? I’m surprised at you, Hawke!”

“I didn’t realize I was so obviously the marrying kind,” Hawke chuckled. 

“You’re one of the most romantic people I’ve ever met,” Varric assured him. “It’s disgusting, but it sells books like you wouldn’t believe.”

Hawke watched as Merrill let out a squeal of delight upon completing one of her knots perfectly. She waved it triumphantly in Isabela’s direction. Beside her, the corner of Fenris’s mouth quirked up.

“I suppose it feels like we’ve already made the decision to spend the rest of our lives together. A ring would just be symbolic at this point, don’t you think?”

“Symbols are important, Hawke. Any writer will tell you that.” Varric paused, quill hovering over his manuscript. Hawke watched as he struck through several lines of dialogue. “And from a purely linguistic standpoint, ‘lover’ sounds a whole lot less permanent than ‘husband’.” 

Hawke considered this. “You don’t think he’d see it as another form of ownership?”

“The opposite,” said Varric. “It’s an act of defiance, really. You, a charming pseudo-noble with a title and a reputation to match, not only fooling around with but _marrying_ a former elven slave? Just think of how many people you’d offend!”

“He does love to watch ignorant humans squirm,” Hawke said fondly.

“And you’d be showing him you don’t give a shit if they do. That’ll probably mean more than you or I could even imagine." 

Hawke felt a pleasant flush rising up the back of his neck. Inexplicably, the thought of marrying Fenris was making his stomach flip; it wasn’t unlike those evenings in Kirkwall he’d spent alone with Fenris, trying to navigate between his subtle smiles and measured closeness, anxious to see if the attraction he felt was something accepted and returned. Hawke laughed to himself and ran a hand through his hair. Varric was right, he thought. Romantic to a fault. 

“So why say all this, Varric?” he asked, still smiling. “Are you in need of a little inspiration for your next book?”

“You wound me, Hawke!” said Varric. “I ask because I care, of course…and because I wanted to put my name in for best man before Rivaini did.”

“Would she not be performing the ceremony? She is a captain, after all.”

“Then it looks like the gig is mine,” Varric concluded with a grin. 

“If this even happens,” Hawke reminded him. “And that is a very big ‘if’, Varric. I don’t want to hear about any clandestine wedding planning, alright?”

Varric shrugged. “Suit yourself. But if there’s anything a good hero needs once his journey’s over, it’s an unexpected proposal. That’s the kind of epilogue readers pay for. Bonus if the wedding’s crazy. You know, battle at sea, huge maelstrom, now-or-never kind of deal." 

“The things I do for your readers…”

Across the deck, Fenris lifted his head and caught Hawke’s eye. He smiled at him, the sharp points of his incisors just barley visible beneath the glint of the sun. It was a smile Fenris was using more and more these days, the kind of unbridled expression of happiness that sometimes left Hawke breathless whenever he was on the receiving end of it.  

Behind him, Varric was chuckling. “Careful, Hawke, you’re swooning —”

“I am not, you bastard.”

“ — and if you keep that up, I might be willing to take on Rivaini’s bet after all.”

“Oh? What bet was that?”

Varric smirked. “That you’ll cry at the wedding. Twice.”

The words had barely left his mouth before Hawke tackled him to the deck.  

It wasn’t until they’d docked in Rialto that Hawke found himself preoccupied with Varric’s suggestion once more. They were passing through the marketplace, marveling at exotic silks and spiced perfumes, when Hawke came across a jewelry stand. Various amulets and ornate armbands were on display across the stall, but it was the case of rings that captured Hawke’s attention. He glanced over them, noting the gemstones and the metals, taking in the carved patterns and engravings, wondering.  

“Springtime is always popular for engagements,” said the woman running the stand.

“Yes,” he said softly. “I suppose it is.”

Further down, Fenris was sampling fruit with Isabela. Hawke watched as he bit into a mango and laughed when the juice dribbled down his chin, the very tips of his ears twitching in pleasure. The jewelry seller noticed Hawke’s attentions and said, “For him, you will want this one.”

Before Hawke could confirm or deny her assumption, she bent down behind the stall and returned with a smaller, velvet case. When she opened it, Hawke felt the breath rush out of him.

The ring was pure gold, but its surface seemed to ripple under the shifting sunlight like waves or dragon scales. In the middle of the band, delicate turquoise gems swept together in swirling spirals. Above and below the pattern, a trio of even tinier stones rested. They looked nearly identical to the lyrium markings on Fenris’s arms. 

“I…” Hawke began.

The woman beamed at him. “For now, or for later. Discount only stands for now, however.”

Hawke chuckled at that. “Fair enough.”

In the end, he left with the ring tucked in his pocket and absolutely no idea when or how he’d find a way to present it to Fenris. 

As time wore on and more pressing matters captured his attention, the ring became more of a wish than a question to be asked. To Hawke, it represented a quiet dream he’d kept locked away in the back of his mind, a dream that one day he and Fenris would no longer have to hide and could build something for themselves together.  

When Isabela and Varric were called into the service of King Alistair a short time later, Hawke gave the ring to Aveline for safe keeping. “Things are getting dicey,” he told her. “I’d hate to lose this in the crossfire.”

“You’ll have to come back for it,” Aveline replied, closing her fist around the token.

“One day,” Hawke said. “One day I will.”  


_____

  
By the time they extracted themselves from each other’s arms, they’d made love twice more already. Once with Fenris in Hawke’s lap, biting at his lips and shoving him back against the headboard like no amount of closeness would be enough. And again, facing one another beneath the blankets, legs thrown over each other’s hips, rocking together lazily in the warmth of the steadily rising sun. The time for breakfast came and went, but neither Hawke nor Fenris were particularly bothered by that fact. The hunger they felt was mainly for each other. And when they slid out of bed, giggling at the pillow creases on their faces, they were full.

It was only as he watched Fenris slip into his clothes, a small, secret smile on his lips, that Hawke recalled that day on Isabela’s ship. And for the first time in years, he thought about how the ring might look on Fenris’s hand, and how a matching one might look upon his own.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Varric's wedding suggestions are in loving reference to Will and Elizabeth's nuptials in Pirates of the Caribbean. Game of Thrones people might also recognize one of the Tevinter endearments Fenris says to Hawke...
> 
> Thank you so much to those who've read and commented. The feedback is, as always, very appreciated. Update to come within the week. In the meantime, you can find me [here](http://www.astrariums.tumblr.com), probably being emotional about Fenris.


	4. Chapter 4

On their second night in Weisshaupt, Hawke dreamt very suddenly that he was falling. 

Out of the deep, peaceful quiet of the sleeping realm, a nameless force reached up to pluck him from his rest. Light diminished. A low, rumbling sound filled his head. And all at once, Hawke found himself standing over a massive precipice. Lightning knifed through the sky, striking at the ground beside him as swiftly and viciously as a serpent. Everything else was shapeless, formless. Desolation. 

Hawke wanted to cry out, wanted to know what he was supposed to do. Darkness writhed within the chasm and the threat of the unknown seemed to blister his skin.  Then, without warning, he was tumbling headlong into the abyss. 

Or did he jump? 

Hawke bolted upright in bed, covered in a cold sweat, shaking. The moon was high and full beyond the window, but the bedroom itself felt stiflingly dark. Hawke bent forward and pressed the heels of his palms over his eyes. 

Did he jump?

“Hawke.”

He flinched, but the tension left his body as soon as Fenris closed a gentle hand around his arm. “What’s wrong?” The elf was still half-asleep, but the question was no less urgent than it would’ve been were he fully alert. “What’s frightened you?” 

“It was just a dream…”

“It is never just a dream,” Fenris said knowingly, and Hawke allowed himself to be guided back down to the bed where he could rest his head in the curve of his lover’s neck. Fenris stroked his hair and murmured something soothing against his brow. 

Hawke melted into the touch, eager for any comfort that was offered to him. Slowly, his body began to calm itself. His trembling ceased and his breath evened. It wasn’t often that he was the one waking in the night, terrified and thrashing in the sheets. But after four years of sharing a bed, he and Fenris both were well-practiced in the art of chasing nightmares away. 

“What did you dream?” Fenris asked after Hawke settled himself closer, one arm thrown across the elf’s waist to anchor himself.

He waited patiently while Hawke searched for a way to describe what he’d seen. So much of it was still a mystery to his own mind. When he finally found his voice  - hoarse, hardly more than a whisper - and told of the darkness, the fear, standing at the very edge of something vast and inexplicable, a part of him began to understand.

“It was something Flemeth said to me at Sundermount,” Hawke said suddenly. He pushed himself away from the comfort of Fenris’s body and settled back against the headboard. Fenris rolled over to watch him, brows knit together. “Standing at the edge of an abyss…leaping. It sounded like a prophecy at the time.”

“I remember,” Fenris murmured.

“That moment in the Fade, the three of us looking up at the demon, knowing someone had to stay behind. I think that was it, Fenris. That was the moment she told me to look for.”

“And you didn’t leap.”

“Not for lack of trying, but…No. I didn’t.”

Fenris considered this. “To put stock in such things, one would have to be a firm believer in destiny.”

“I suppose,” said Hawke. “Maybe I am. And, if that’s the case, if I was meant to stop the demon while Stroud and the Inquisitor escaped, then it’s possible I’ve done something very, very wrong.”

Fenris lifted his hand to cup Hawke’s cheek.“Or perhaps it is guilt that haunts you. Not fate.”

Outside, a reed warbled its midnight song. Hawke closed his eyes and breathed in. The chasm loomed up in the blackness beneath his eyelids. 

“When last I checked,” Fenris continued, “Flemeth did not dictate the course of the future. No one does. If the Maker indeed exists, then he does so at a distance, allowing us to make our own choices and determine our own fates.”

Hawke nodded, if only to let Fenris know he was still listening. He felt distant himself, like the individual pieces of who he was were splayed out across the room, waiting to be collected.

“Look at me.”

Hawke obeyed. Moonlight softened Fenris somewhat, smoothing down the sharp angles of his body, setting a glow about his hair. Hawke was more partial to daylight, but the shadows and quiet seemed as natural to Fenris as a blade. Perhaps that was why Hawke clung to him so tightly during the night, and why Fenris never strayed too far from Hawke during the day.

“You have not doomed anyone for following the Inquisitor’s orders,” Fenris whispered. His palm was warm against Hawke’s neck. “You have simply put yourself on a different path than what was expected of you. Stroud did the same, did he not?”

“It sounds so simple when you say it,” Hawke sighed. “But I still feel…this has been weighing on me ever since I left Adamant, Fenris. And I can’t shake it.”

“The difficult choices are the ones that burden us most,” said Fenris. “You never meant for Stroud to die or even for Corypheus to survive your confrontation with him. But you can’t torture yourself over things beyond your control. If you live the rest of your life fixated on what could have been, you’ll never find happiness. I, of all people, know that to be true.”

“So what do I do?”

Fenris looked at him with such tenderness that Hawke felt inclined to turn away, to shut down his vulnerability and cast if off into the shadows gathering in the corners of the room. But he struggled against the impulse and held his lover’s gaze. When Fenris found his hands in the dark, Hawke gripped them tightly.

“You can begin,” said Fenris, “by forgiving yourself.”

“Easier said than done if this bloody nightmare is any indication.”

“I never said it was easy,” Fenris replied. “You’ve been through much, both with me and without. Take it slowly. Piece by piece. We can put this behind us together.”

If Hawke knew anything for certain, it was that he was a much more capable man with Fenris at his side. Even the most difficult tasks seemed less daunting when they worked through them together. He could find some peace and, hopefully, rest in this fact. He smiled at the elf and slid back down against the pillows until they were lying face to face.

“What would I do without you?” Hawke sighed, running his finger down the slope of Fenris’s nose.

Fenris very nearly purred at the gesture, and Hawke could tell that sleep was rising up to claim him again. “You would survive, I think,” he said. “But you would not be as kind to yourself as you should.”

“I do like this ‘we’ business,” Hawke murmured.

Fenris hummed and let his eyes fall shut. “It’s been this way for a long time now, hasn’t it?”

“Since the day you ripped a man’s heart out in front of me and captured mine right along with it.”

Fenris cracked an eye open. “Really?”

“Maybe not that early,” Hawke admitted. “But anyone consulting _The Tale of the Champion_ knows it was all over for me as soon as you decided to stay in Kirkwall.”

“And what does the Champion himself have to say about that?”

Hawke leaned forward and brushed their lips together. “That sometimes the truth really is as sickeningly romantic as fiction.”

Fenris chuckled to himself and snuggled close enough that their legs tangled underneath the blankets. Hawke welcomed him into his arms, burrowing deeper into the warmth of the bed and the (always) unexpected softness of Fenris’s body.

“Can you sleep?” Fenris asked, the edges of his words slurring.

“I think so.”

Fenris murmured something else, but Hawke couldn’t make it out. Regardless, any reply would be lost on the elf, who’d already drifted off to sleep. Hawke lay awake in the dark for a time afterwards, watching the gentle rise and fall of Fenris’s chest, counting his breaths.

When he was young, Hawke and the twins shared a bed in their little farmhouse in Lothering. Being the oldest by seven years, he was called upon to keep any monsters under the bed at bay, to sing lullabies, to rub Bethany’s arm when she was restless, and to stop Carver from stealing all the blankets. By the time the twins fell asleep, resting against each of Hawke’s shoulders, he would lie in the subsequent quiet, mindful of their breathing and the occasional sound of Carver talking in his sleep. 

“They’re mine,” he’d declared the first time Malcolm placed them in his arms, swaddled up and cooing.

Years later, Hawke still didn’t know why he said it, only that the protectiveness he’d felt for his siblings was all-consuming at times, deadly at others. It was the sort of feeling that kept him moving in the Deep Roads when Carver’s weight on his back threatened to overwhelm him, that still sent him to his knees in grief whenever something reminded him a little too much of Bethany. 

Here, lying beside Fenris, listening to every exhalation, Hawke recognized that familiar compulsion to shield and cherish. Not only that, but to share - in happiness and sorrow, in burdens and triumphs, in life. He’d forgotten during their months apart that loving Fenris was so much more than just wanting him safe.

“Fool mage,” Hawke said quietly to himself, two words Fenris often called him when he was being ridiculous. He smiled. Fenris didn’t even stir.

Hawke cuddled closer, less fearful of his dreams knowing Fenris was just a breath away. “You’re asleep,” he whispered. “But I get it now. And aren’t you going to laugh when I tell you? I can’t wait to see the look on your face, love.”

Drawing the blankets over their shoulders, Hawke closed his eyes. Part of him wished Fenris had been awake enough to hear him so he could speak his truth now. But he’d dallied this long in saying it, hadn’t he? One more night couldn’t hurt.

With this in mind, Hawke let himself slip back into the sleeping realm, but not before he reached out to grasp at Fenris’s left hand, and placed his thumb over the very spot where a wedding band might rest.

_____

_Kirkwall, 9:37 Dragon_

“If there is a future to be had, I will walk into it gladly at your side.”

_____

Though Hawke was tempted to resort to his earlier methods of avoiding sleep altogether, it turned out that he needn’t have worried. The dream disappeared from his subconscious as quickly and quietly as it had come.

His thoughts were now preoccupied with one subject and one subject only. After he’d woken up the following morning with Fenris curled against his back, nose pressed between his shoulder blades, it had only taken him a brief moment to remember the resolution he’d made the night before. And, with his heart pounding in anticipation, Hawke began to plan.

As it turned out, the opportune moment came when they were strolling through the orchard, trading an apple Fenris had swiped from the kitchens back and forth between them. It was a particularly blustery morning, but the sun was warm and the stunted trees offered a bit of respite from the swirling dust and sand. 

Fenris had taken a considerably large bite of the apple and was chuckling as he wiped the juice from his chin with the back of his hand. There was no particular reason why Hawke should have been so taken with that small, insignificant moment. But the thought came to him nonetheless: _I want to spend the rest of my life watching you eat apples as clumsily and gracelessly as you do._

“I have something to ask you,” said Hawke, coming to stillness on the path.

Fenris had already taken a few steps in front of him and turned to look over his shoulder, curious. “Yes?”

“Come here.”

After chucking the apple core over the side of the fortress, Fenris did as he was asked. Hawke led them both to one of the stone benches lining the courtyard and sat Fenris down upon it. With no further preamble, he took a deep breath and lowered himself to one knee.

Fenris stared at him. “What are you doing?”

“I realized something,” said Hawke, keenly aware that his hands had begun to shake. “And it seems so silly now that it took me this long to understand, but I was thinking about what I did in the Fade and why I did it…and I was finally able to see where I went wrong. I thought loving you was as simple as keeping you safe, even at the cost of my own life. And in some ways, yes, that might be part of it. But even more than that, loving you means wanting to build and share a life with you. I think you’ve been privy to that far longer than I have, Fenris.”

Above him, Fenris drew a soft gasp of a breath but said nothing. Maybe he’d caught on to what was about to happen. Maybe he was considering telling Hawke to shove off.

“And maybe me acknowledging that is enough for you,” Hawke continued, keeping his eyes level with the elf's, “but I think it’s in my nature to take it one step further. If we're spending the rest of our lives together, I want everyone to know it. That this - what we have - isn’t a passing thing. And that I couldn’t give a blighted fuck if it isn't considered appropriate or proper. I am unbelievably proud to be with you and I'll spend every last day of my life shouting that from the rooftops if I have to.”

Fenris lips turned upwards at that, but he still looked as if he wasn’t certain whether he wanted to bolt or remain right where he was, gazing at Hawke.

Undaunted, or at the very least foolhardy enough to finish the speech, consequences be damned, Hawke continued, “I don’t have much to offer by way of wealth or status outside of infamy at this point. You already have my heart and everything that comes with it. But I swear to you, Fenris, I will always be a man you can depend on, someone who stands beside you, never in front of you. Someone who wants nothing more than to make you the happiest you could possibly be.” 

When Hawke took his hand, Fenris did not resist. “And now that I’ve prattled on for much longer than I intended, all that’s left for me to do is ask, I suppose." He smiled up at him tenderly, hopefully. "So, Fenris, would you make this whole ridiculous speech worth it by accepting my hand?”

It struck Hawke how quiet the courtyard had become. The breeze still swept through the trees and ruffled their hair, but it wasn’t whistling like it usually did. The birds had either flown off or taken up a silent perch on the parapets. It was the sort of quiet found between a question and an answer, the pensive holding of ones breath in anticipation. 

Then Fenris took Hawke’s face in his hands and looked down at him with suspiciously wet eyes and the kind of willing vulnerability Hawke once thought he’d never be privileged enough to see. 

Hawke kissed the inside of his palm. “I don’t have the ring with me, but I’ll put it on your finger the moment we get to Kirkwall if that’s what you want. So will you? Marry me, I mean?” 

Fenris made a sound between a laugh and a sob, then hauled Hawke up onto the bench and kissed him deeply, arms winding around his back, until it was impossible to tell where he ended and Hawke began. Hawke, who had nearly suffered a heart attack during the whole ordeal, gave in to the embrace with utter relief. And this went on for several blissful moments before he remembered that his proposal had ultimately gone unanswered.

“Wait, wait, wait,” he said, gently extracting himself from Fenris. “Is this a yes? You are saying yes, aren’t you?”

“Oh, for the love of — _yes!”_

“Well, thank the Maker for that!” Hawke cried and swept Fenris into his arms so he could spin him around the courtyard.

Though Hawke hadn’t planned beyond the initial proposal, he was perfectly happy to carry on in this fashion - heart full to bursting, Fenris’s head thrown back in laughter - for as long as he could keep spinning without tripping over his own feet. And he would have undoubtedly done so had a new shadow not stretched across the courtyard to join them. 

“Champion,” Sulwe said after clearing her throat loudly. She was glancing between Hawke and Fenris with brows raised.

Hawke skidded to a halt. “Uh, yes?”

“Letter for you,” she said, producing a piece of rolled-up parchment. “Courtesy of the Inquisition.”

“Oh,” said Hawke and, suddenly aware that he was still holding Fenris several inches above the ground, set him back on his feet. 

“What do they want now?” Fenris muttered, stalking over to retrieve the missive from Sulwe. 

The Warden overseer merely shrugged and, once Fenris had begun to tear open the seal, left them to it. Though Hawke half expected Fenris to simply read the letter on his own, the elf returned to his side and dropped the parchment into his waiting hand.

It certainly looked official on first glance. The script was familiar, too, though Hawke couldn’t place the hand that wrote it. He scanned the contents of the letter, wary of the wind trying to pluck it out of his grasp, and felt his frown deepen with every word.

“Is it bad?” Fenris, who was clearly trying not to read over Hawke’s shoulder, asked.

Hawke swallowed. “The Inquisition has requested that I return to Skyhold once I’ve finished my business with the Wardens.”

“What? Why?”

“Apparently, things with Corypheus are coming to a head,” said Hawke. He turned back to the letter in hopes that he might have misread something, knowing full well he was about to be disappointed. “They’d like me to step in as an advisor before preparations for the final assault get underway. Probably expect me to do a decent bit of fighting, too.”

“Does Varric know of this?” Fenris's voice was strained, as if expressing neutrality was a battle within itself. 

“I doubt it. Otherwise, he would have written to me himself. He probably doesn’t want me there any more than you do.”

Fenris dropped his gaze to the ground. “I suppose, either way, if you feel that it’s necessary…”

A long, quiet moment passed between them, the proposal briefly forgotten. 

Across the courtyard, a trio of older Wardens had appeared, strolling leisurely along the parapets. They were all weathered and greying, but the smiles they wore for each other spoke of many more youthful days spent together. Even so, they kept steely eyes on the horizon, watching for imminent signs of attack between their idle conversation. They would face their Calling soon.

Hawke watched them for a time, until the dust rising from their heels dissipated. Grey Wardens, he realized, were more or less resigned to the fact that they would die. Whether by Darkspawn or the corruption in their own blood, every last one of them would be taken before their time. It was their duty, just as it was the Inquisition’s duty to save Thedas from destruction. 

Funny, thought Hawke. He couldn’t recall ever making such a promise.

“Well,” he said, and struck off towards the very spot the Wardens had vacated. 

The skies were exceptionally clear, even with the wind stirring up the sand below. If Hawke squinted, he could even make out the rising spires of Hossberg. Standing at the parapets, just one slip away from tumbling over the edge of the fortress, he felt a sense of freedom he hadn’t experienced since the first day he set foot on Isabela’s ship. 

Fenris was at his heels, one hand already gripping at Hawke’s sleeve to make sure he didn’t lose his balance. “Well what?”

Hawke grinned at him and promptly tore the letter in two. 

“Hawke, what..” Fenris gaped at him, clearly unaware of whether he should be delighted or horrified. “You can’t just….are you…?”

“They needed my help with the Wardens,” Hawke explained. He gave the letter another satisfying rip. “And I’m glad to have done my part. But the Inquisition is more than prepared to handle Corypheus without me. They already have their hero. Or heroine, as it were.”

Hawke looked down at the shredded paper in his hand one last time, then lifted his palms skyward and let the breeze carry the remnants of his missive off into the desert. 

“Besides,” he said warmly. “I’ve got a wedding to plan.”

When their eyes met and Fenris was able to see just how utterly sincere Hawke was about his decision, he began to laugh. It was just a soft, bewildered chuckle at first. Then, as Hawke took his hands and squeezed, it became a full-bodied sound, loud and joyous and unattractive, and the most perfect thing Hawke had ever heard.

It wasn’t until Hawke had stripped Fenris out of his clothes and thrown him unceremoniously onto the bed, that the notion of a more reasonable response to the Inquisition’s request crossed either of their minds.  

“The Seeker’s going to kill you,” Fenris remarked, one hand tugging lightly at Hawke’s hair as he kissed his way down the elf’s chest.

“Oh, she would never.” Hawke mouthed at his nipple, smirking at the strangled noise Fenris made in response. “She loves me.”

“I seem to recall you saying the exact same thing - _ah_ \- about Meredith Stannard not too long ago.”

“I was practicing my irony,” Hawke replied before following a tantalizing curve of lyrium between Fenris’s hipbones with his tongue. “Are you saying you have a better solution than tearing up an official missive from the most influential organization in Thedas and tossing it into the wasteland?”

Fenris, who was beginning to turn crimson from Hawke’s ministrations, covered up an ill-timed moan with a cough. “You might’ve at least sent them a strongly worded letter.”

Hawke shrugged and divested Fenris of his smallclothes, which he tossed across the room. He ran his hands along Fenris’s thighs, both of which had started to quiver ever so slightly against the sheets, admiring the thick muscle underneath. He dropped a kiss to each, but lingered on the second to glance up at Fenris with what he hoped was an expression of irresistible seduction.

“Your priorities in this matter are questionable,” Fenris informed him.

Hawke glanced between Fenris’s legs, then regarded him with a raised brow. “Pot and kettle.”

“You can’t really expect me to…” was all Fenris was able to say before Hawke resumed his attentions, sucking several bruising kisses into the crease of his thigh. “ _Maker_ , Hawke, but one of us must consider the - _oh_ \- consequences.”

“We’re engaged now, in case you’ve forgotten,” Hawke muttered against Fenris’s navel. “I’m trying to celebrate.”

Fenris tightened his grip in Hawke’s hair. “I’d just prefer it if the most influential organization in Thedas, as you put it, didn’t have you on their blacklist.”

“Fine, fine,” Hawke said exasperatedly. “I’ll write a response first thing tomorrow. Now, for the love of all that is good in this world, would you please stop talking so I can suck you off in peace?”

Fenris, whose peculiar sense of humor still came as a surprise in moments like these, gave him a toothy grin. “Have ever I mentioned, Hawke, that your way with words is absolutely—”

“Argh!”

Hawke, feigning outrage, clambered up the bed to silence Fenris with a kiss, muttering something about saucy elves before sinking back down into the sheets, throwing Fenris’s legs over his shoulders, and putting his mouth to better use.

True to his word, Hawke wrote his reply the next day ( _“To whom it may concern, I’m flattered that you think my expertise in this matter is required. However, I regret to inform you that I cannot return to Skyhold under the present circumstances. Namely, I don’t want to. The Inquisitor has the situation under control, I’m certain, and I officially appoint Varric as my proxy if further guidance is needed. Most sincerely yours, Garrett Hawke, First of His Name, Champion of Kirkwall, etc. etc. Good luck with saving the world!”_ ) and sent it off by carrier pigeon.  

Not long after, they turned their attention to the whispers of griffons lurking about the fortress. 

“The aerie’s carved into the mountain there,” Fenris said during one of their routine strolls. He pointed at a protuberance of stone that formed the shape of a lone, tall tower butting out from Weisshaupt’s posterior wall. “At least, that’s what I assume. I can’t imagine what else that might be used for.”

“Imprisoned darkspawn?” Hawke supplied cheerfully.

“An adventure either way,” Fenris said with a grin. “Though I’m still attempting to work out how we’ll actually get there.”

“Stalking, of course. We just have to follow that elf mage with all the scratches and she’ll take us right to it.”

“What part of that plan sounds like it will go well?”

Hawke considered this. “None I suppose. But since when has that ever stopped us before?”

But after hours of fruitless searching, it became apparent that a more direct course of action would have to be employed. With nothing but Hawke’s assurances that it wouldn’t get them kicked out of Weisshaupt, they approached Kelani on the training field where she was throwing daggers at a practice dummy.

“Kelani,” said Hawke. “We have a request - nay! - a demand.”

The dwarf paused mid-throw. “I can already tell I’m not going to like this.”

“Griffons. We want to see them.”

Kelani dropped her dagger. “Alright, who spilled it?” she asked, rounding on Hawke in an unexpectedly threatening manner. “Was it Orla? Finn? It was probably Finn. The second you give that man a drink, he can’t keep his mouth shut.”

“No one specifically told us,” Fenris said quickly. “It was just something I overheard.”

“Oh, the First Warden’s not going to be happy…”

“I’m not certain he has to know,” Hawke replied with a dazzling grin.

When that failed to work, he adopted his most pitiable expression, the sort of sad yet hopeful eyes that got even Fenris to acquiesce to Hawke’s wishes.

Kelani pointed at him accusingly. “Not with the face, Hawke, don’t you dare! I’m not giving in.”

But her resolve proved to be less stalwart than she’d hoped, and soon enough Kelani was leading Hawke and Fenris up a steep corridor to the aerie, muttering about charming Fereldan bastards as she went. The passage itself was relatively hidden from the main hallways of the fortress, perhaps to protect the more defenseless griffon young in the event of an assault. At the end of it was a tall, wooden door with several fang-shaped holes ripped through it.

Going off Fenris and Hawke’s concerned glances, Kelani shrugged. “They’re teething.”

Though Hawke had read many stories about the Grey Wardens and their aerial steeds, very little could have prepared him for the sight of thirteen griffon chicks perching inside the stone-lined aerie. They were as large as Mabari pups, clicking their beaks inquiringly at their visitors. Each was covered in a soft, grey down, but the sharpness of their talons served as a reminder of how deadly they would one day become.

The mage they’d attempted to find earlier was seated among them, running her fingers through their feathers. When she saw Kelani leading Hawke and Fenris into the room, she sighed. Hawke got the impression that unexpected visitors to the aerie were becoming rather commonplace.

“Well,” she said, “I was going to need help feeding them anyway.”

The mage’s name was Valya, and she was technically not a Grey Warden. She had yet to undergo the Joining, and it was apparent that this was the First Warden’s doing and not her own reluctance. As Hawke watched the chicks clamber over her lap, nuzzling at her chest and stomach, he had the distinct feeling that no one was about to put a woman so clearly skilled at handling the griffons through an ordeal that might kill her.

“So why all the secrecy?” Hawke asked, grunting as a griffon with speckles of dark brown in his feathers charged from the opposite end of the room and landed in his lap. He scratched its belly thoughtfully, breathing in its uniquely leonine smell. “I should think there’s reason to celebrate the reemergence of a once extinct species.”

Valya dropped a fatty piece of goat meat into the mouth of a waiting chick. “I wish that were the case. We need these griffons for breeding purposes; they’ll likely never see battle. But other nations might see them as a symbol of power and status. Imagine if the Orlesian Grey Wardens possessed a griffon or two while the Fereldan Warden’s did not. Politics have no place in this, and I worry that, if word were to spread, we would be forced to play that game nonetheless.”

“It is a fair assessment,” Fenris agreed, feeding a particularly rambunctious griffon sprawled across his legs. “But you have nothing to fear from us.”

Kelani, who was watching from a distance, nodded. “If anything, these are the perfect people to tell, Valya. They hate authority.”

When the feeding was over, the griffons spent their energy leaping around the aerie, play-fighting and growling low in their throats. Hawke, unable to stop comparing them to puppies (he was so painfully Fereldan sometimes), chased a pair of them through the straw, pretending to grab at their tails.

“Will they still fly?” Fenris asked. The same griffon he’d been feeding was now perched regally on his shoulder, surveying Hawke’s antics below.

“I hope so,” said Valya. “They should be accustomed to being ridden, at any rate.”

Hawke perked up at that.

“Don’t even think about it,” said Fenris wryly. “You’d crush them.”

Kelani laughed. “It’s true. The smaller and lighter the Warden, the longer the griffon can serve them.”

“You two, for example,” said Valya, gesturing between Kelani and Fenris, “would make good candidates.”

“Oh, no, I’d like to remain firmly on the ground,” said the dwarf. “Horses, I can handle. But the pointier, flying versions of them? No thank you.”

Fenris, however, stroked the beak of his new companion affectionately. “Would you like that?” he asked softly. “We’d have an awful lot of fun hunting down slave owners. You’d dine on magister every night.”

The griffon whirred pleasantly.

“Indeed,” said Fenris.

When the griffons began to tire and curled up together for their afternoon nap, Hawke collapsed beside Fenris and slung his arm around his shoulders. Fenris settled into him with a contented sigh. Kelani was stretching, eyes drifting to the door, and Valya seemed to be gathering her things as well. But for the moment, the peace of the now quiet aerie was enough to make them all linger.

“Are you happy?” Hawke asked, soft enough for only Fenris to hear.

“I think I’ve been adopted by a griffon,” Fenris replied, chuckling. “There’s happiness to be found in that, I suppose.”

“You know what I mean.”

Fenris gazed up at him warmly. “Happy,” he said, “does not even begin to cover it.”

The following days passed unremarkably, but no less happily than the ones that preceded them. They spent much of their time as a pair, whether it was sparring with Kelani in the training field, feeding the griffons with Valya, or exploring Weisshaupt’s many mysterious nooks and crannies.

Though the mage recruits had more or less reclaimed the library, Hawke and Fenris held a considerable monopoly on the more sheltered rows of bookshelves. It was perfectly innocent at first. The further away they were from others, the more they could read aloud to each other and perfect Fenris’s already considerable writing skills. If they occasionally misused the seclusion for, say, Fenris nipping at the thick column of Hawke’s neck, or Hawke paying special and inappropriate attention to the tips of the elf’s ears, well, nobody had to know. And nobody did until an afternoon later that week when, crowded in together against a shelf of old scrolls, Hawke elicited some very vocal approval from Fenris. 

As they fled the library and the disapproving looks of both Sulwe and the Chamberlain of the Grey, a sudden shout echoed down from one of the many lookout points within the fortress. Hawke, with Fenris in tow, sprinted towards the nearest archer’s slit to have a look. Sure enough, a caravan was making its way towards Weisshaupt. A single horse and rider were at its head, the silver of their armor glinting in the sunlight. The First Warden.

“About bloody time,” observed Fenris.

The travelers didn’t arrive until nightfall, but it wasn’t easy to miss their entrance into the fortress. Hawke wasn’t familiar with Grey Warden customs, but it seemed an unnecessary amount of decorum was required to make sure everyone knew that the First Warden had, in fact, returned from his journey to Hossberg. 

It was only when he found himself seated in the First Warden’s study, that Hawke was able to get a good look at the man. He was older than Hawke by a few years at least, and the stress of his position had shot streaks of grey through his dark brown hair. Morgenstern was the name Kelani saluted him with when she brought Hawke to meet him, but Hawke got the impression very few outside the Wardens were actually allowed to use it.

“So,” said Morgenstern, folding his long fingers together across his desk. “How may I help the infamous Champion of Kirkwall?”

Hawke told his tale as quickly as he could manage, unable to place why he felt so wary. There were rumors, of course, that the First Warden had machinations on the Anderfels throne. Some even said a coup would not only be inevitable, but welcome by most of the nobility. It was clear that the Grey Wardens held more influence over the country than anyone in court; in the end, if anything happened, it would just be a matter of remembering who had what title. 

But this wasn’t the reason for Hawke’s unease. There was something in Morgenstern’s posture that set his teeth on edge. There was an air of dismissal about it, as if the crumbling of an entire branch of Grey Warden forces was a minor setback rather than a tragedy. This wasn’t the sort of man fit to control a group of people who devoted their lives to the defense of Thedas. This wasn’t the sort of man Hawke wanted anything to do with. 

When it was over, Hawke shook the First Warden’s hand stiffly and departed with the distinct feeling that what he’d said hadn’t made a difference at all.

Fenris listened to him rant about it later, a disapproving frown on his lips. But both of them knew any protestations on their part would fall on deaf ears. Their only solace was, morbidly, that the First Warden’s Calling would put a new face in power within a decade or two. And, hopefully, they would be a more deserving one. 

“You’ve done your duty. There’s little point in wondering what happens beyond that,” Fenris said definitively, putting the conversation to an end in favor of discussing better things.  They would be leaving in the morning and there was packing to be done. Wardens and their messes could be grumbled over at another time.

When Hawke woke to an empty bed before daybreak, the memory of Fenris standing over the fireplace, sorrowfully telling him that they could never be, flew unbidden into his conscious. 

He shook his head, rattling the unwelcome images from his mind, and pulled on his boots. Though his thoughts were still groggy, he knew beyond a doubt that Fenris had not inexplicably left him. With his cloak fastened around his shoulders, Hawke crept from their borrowed room and made his way towards the edge of the southern battlements, where a hooded figure stood observing the desolate world below.

Unlike previous nights in the Anderfels, the cold was barely traceable against Hawke’s skin. Spring was finally coming to Thedas.

“Would you like some company for your late night ruminations?” Hawke asked as he approached.

Fenris tilted his head forwards, shielding a smile. “Strange. I thought it was nearly dawn.”

Hawke peered out at the horizon, where deep blue was just beginning to bleed into a softer lavender. The stars, too, were growing dim in light of the coming day. 

“Did I wake you?” Fenris murmured, drawing his cloak tight in front of his chest. 

“Not at all.” Hawke nudged his shoulder. “You’re alright, though, aren’t you? It’s been almost a year since your last memory. Did you…see something else?”

“It’s not that,” Fenris sighed. A sudden gust blew back his hood and he grunted in annoyance. Hawke noticed the shadows under his eyes. “I was thinking about what might happen to us once we leave. And to the rest of the world.”

“Corypheus.”

Fenris nodded grimly. “I’ve been trying, for your sake, not to worry these last few days. But I think my fears are catching up with me.”

He stretched his arm out and pointed across the desert. “Look closer at the horizon. Tell me what you see.”

Hawke, concerned, did as he was told. At first glance, it was the same sky he’d observed moments ago, resting on the borders of northern Orlais. Then Fenris directed him towards the leftmost region and Hawke drew in a sharp breath.

Hovering beneath the clouds, pale green flickered like lightning on the horizon. 

“Fade rifts.”

“Nevarra was free of them when I passed through,” said Fenris. “And I heard no news out of Tevinter that suggested danger. But Ferelden and Orlais are rife with them. And they may yet spread to the Anderfels. Does the Inquisition’s power reach this far? Are we truly safe, Hawke?”

Hawke watched the rift for a time. He’d heard stories of lights in the deepest, most unexplored regions of the Korcari Wilds. Travelers said that, in the dead of winter, one could watch bands of pure light dancing around the stars. They came in all colors. Pale blue, iridescent violet. Red, even. They were probably near-identical to the sickly reflections of the Fade curving enticingly above Orlais. But in all other things, the two phenomenons were strangers.

“I may be a fool for saying so,” Hawke said finally. “But I trust in the Inquisition. They’ve got good people. Strong people. And the Inquisitor herself is determined to stop Corypheus, even if she has to kill herself to do it.”

Fenris studied his expression closely. “Will it be enough?”

“I’m not sure what answer you’d like,” Hawke admitted. “The blindly optimistic one or—”

“The true one. Whatever that may be.”

“Then, yes, I think it will be enough. Things might get much worse before the end, but I don’t believe Thedas is about to crash and burn around us. For the most part.”

Fenris was quiet for a moment, then he blurted out suddenly, “Hawke, if they need you in Ferelden, you shouldn’t abandon them on my account.”

“Where is all this coming from?” Hawke asked, drawing Fenris closer. “Why are you talking like this?”

“Because I was wrong in what I said to you before,” Fenris said sadly. “I thought I could stand to let this world fall if it meant being at your side while it did. But that isn’t enough. I don’t want precious minutes, I know that now. So if there’s even one thing you can do to give us more time, I refuse to stand in your way.”

Hawke embraced him and their cloaks tangled around their ankles, folding them together against the wind. “Don’t you see?” he whispered. “It doesn’t matter whether I’m in Skyhold or in Kirkwall with you. They don’t need me. If anything, I might make a few of their people feel more confident. But everything else is in their hands. And if everything goes to shit in spite of their best efforts, then I’d rather spend my last few days with the people I care about. So I _am_ giving us more time. Just depends on how you measure it.”

Fenris sighed against Hawke’s chest, but he didn’t let go. 

“Not the most comforting thing to say, I am aware,” Hawke added. “But it’s the best I’ve got. And, for right now, it’s the best we can hope for.”

“I’m sorry,” Fenris said at last. “We’ve been so happy these last few days and now I’ve tarnished that.”

Hawke kissed his forehead. “Good or bad, I’m here with you. You haven’t ruined anything. And besides, it seems like nighttime existential crises are a staple in our relationship. I’d be rather insulted if you left all the fun to me.”

Fenris chuckled and pulled away, his gaze slipping back towards the distant rift. “If that’s the case, then I’m glad to share these moments with you. You…bring me comfort, Hawke. You always have.”

Hawke reached across the space between them to lace their fingers together. “And I always will, for however long I can.”

They remained together on the battlements until the last of the stars winked out, watching the rift’s shifting form on the horizon with fingers intertwined.

When sunlight finally poured over Weisshaupt, they rose from their bed and prepared for the long journey that lay ahead of them. They would travel alongside a supply caravan to Hossberg, then on to the seaside city of Tallo. From there, they would take ship to Vyrantium and ride south through Nevarra on the Imperial Highway towards Kirkwall. It was the long route, the impractical one. But the prospect of facing darkspawn in the desert alone appealed to neither of them. And they’d missed the sea.

Kelani insisted on accompanying them to Hossberg, and even managed to wheedle some time out of their trip to spend exploring and enjoying the city. Though Hawke was looking forward to a few leisurely days in a place that wasn’t an ancient Grey Warden fortress, he couldn’t deny the nostalgia he felt as the looming shadow of Weisshaupt began to disappear behind them. 

For him and for Fenris, it would always serve as a reminder of the promises they made to each other. And for Hawke, it was the unlikely place in which he’d found his peace.

“It’s strange,” Fenris remarked after they were well on their way. “I never thought I’d come to miss a city full of errant mages and corrupted templars. But I can’t stop thinking about how glad I am to be returning to Kirkwall.”

“You did have _some_ pleasant experiences there,” Hawke reminded him. “If you’re in need of a hint, he’s riding his horse right beside you.”

Fenris rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“Of course I do,” said Hawke, and his lips formed a smile. “It isn’t just Kirkwall, after all. It’s home.”

At one time, perhaps, Fenris would have shaken his head at Hawke’s insufferable sentimentality. But with the many months of their separation stretching out behind them, and the promise of wedding bands and hope for a brighter, safer world ahead, Hawke supposed he was inclined to let it be. Instead, Fenris reached for Hawke’s hand and brought it to his lips. 

“And we two weary travelers will find it soon enough,” he murmured across Hawke’s knuckles. “ _Gratia._ ”

Thankfulness. 

Hawke didn’t need a translation for that one. He knew the feeling well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the lateness of this update, but I hope it was worth the wait. In addition, a surprise epilogue has forced its way into the story and should be up next week. Until then, you can find me [here.](http://www.astrariums.tumblr.com)
> 
> Thank you again for the kudos and for every amazing comment I've received - they really keep me motivated!


	5. Chapter 5

_An excerpt from Tale of the Champion, The Continued Adventures, by Varric Tethras:_

It was only after he found himself knee-deep in felled demons, Venatori, and Red Templars that Hawke finally admitted returning to the Inquisition might have been the better of his options.

He should’ve expected this, really. From what Varric had relayed in his most recent and rather urgently written letter, Corypheus was backed into a corner; and if the lovely new breach above distant Ferelden was any indicator, he wasn’t about to go down without a fight. Though why that last ditch effort had to involve deploying what little remained of his army for some good old havoc-wreaking across Thedas was anyone’s guess.

Moreover, the fact that Corypheus had to go about interrupting Hawke’s wedding in the process seemed frankly uncalled for.

“I’m beginning to think your life isn’t meant to be boring, Hawke,” Aveline grunted, shield raised. “Only you would manage to get your own wedding interrupted by the army of an ancient darkspawn magister.”

They were back-to-back in the middle of Lowtown, beating down the last of the Red Templars. Hawke sent a fireball into the thick of them and the smell of burning flesh and charred lyrium filled the air. He wrinkled his nose.

“Could’ve picked a better day,” Hawke admitted with a grin. “But really, Aveline, what’s a wedding without mass panic and demons?”

“Easier on the nerves, that’s for sure,” a voice said from across the square. Donnic was jogging towards them with half the city guard at his heels. “Hightown’s secure for the moment and we’ve got enough manpower to clear out Darktown within the hour.”

“And the docks?” Hawke asked, cursing the hint of worry sliding into his tone. He’d watched Isabela charge in that direction as soon as the Red Templars arrived. Keen on keeping the elf as far away from corrupted lyrium as possible, she’d dragged Fenris off with her.

“Dodgy at best. I’d head there as soon as you’ve caught your breath.”

Aveline nodded. “Carver and Merrill should be finishing up in the Alienage soon. Give them any extra support they need, then send them off to the docks as well.”

With one last look at his wife in equal parts affection and admiration, Donnic saluted and struck off for the Alienage. The sky had darkened considerably since they first docked _The Siren’s Call II_ back at port, but Hawke had a feeling the clouds above weren’t just the sort that heralded a storm. Whatever Corypheus was doing now, it certainly wasn’t good.

Aveline shook her head grimly. “Pointless destruction, all this. Corypheus doesn’t have enough forces to take the city so he’s settled for ripping apart as much of it as he can. Probably doing the same thing across Thedas as we speak.”

Hawke squeezed her shoulder. “And he won’t last long enough to see it. But in the meantime, you look like you might enjoy kicking a few demons around. It’s been a while, after all.”

In spite of herself, Aveline grinned. “I’ll never admit it if you tell anyone else, but I missed having you around.”

“Let it be known that there can never be too many surprises in one day!” Hawke declared. “But hopefully that revelation of yours is the last of them. I’m not so sure I could handle a dragon in addition to all this.”

“Maker, Hawke, don’t tempt fate.”

They made their way to the docks swiftly, only to find it teeming with Venatori and a slew of demons at their behest. With the Red Templars annihilated and most of the city reclaimed, the mages were summoning all manner of creatures from the Fade to their sides for a final assault. Hawke wasn’t certain if they were fighting out of their own volition, or if they were simply too lost under Corypheus’s control to care that their efforts might be in vain. Either way, desperation was almost palpable in the humid air around them.

As he and Aveline battled their way to the main strip, a manic laugh swung upwards above the fray and Hawke caught sight of Isabela gleefully dispatching a group of reanimated corpses. Just a few feet over, Fenris was making short work of an abomination. Though they were both covered in blood and a few nasty looking bruises, neither seemed to be suffering from any life-threatening injury.

“It’s about time you showed up!” Isabela shouted. “You’ve been missing out on all the fun!”

“Is that what we’re calling it?” said Fenris wryly. His eyes suddenly focused on something over their shoulders. “Hold on a moment.”

With that, he charged around them and right into the path of a pride demon. Before anyone else could think to attack, Fenris slid underneath it and delivered a deep cut to its haunches, crippling it. As the demon stumbled forward, Fenris finished it off with a thrust into its spine.

He rejoined the group as casually as if he’d just ordered a drink at the Hanged Man. Isabela whistled in admiration before Hawke drew Fenris in close. They beamed at each other, breathless but relieved.

“That was very attractive,” Hawke informed him.

Fenris opened his mouth to reply, but was cut short when another wave of demons rose up from the ground at the end of the docks. With a quick nod, they all took off for their chosen targets, blades and staffs at the ready.

This attack was by no means what the siege at Adamant had been, but Hawke felt that familiar tug of anxiety when he summoned his magic to engage the incoming demons. It was unlikely Kirkwall would fall. The cost of its security, however, remained to be seen. Death was always a possibility. And even though Hawke occasionally dabbled in his own brand of blind optimism, the reminder of his mortality and that of his companions was annoyingly constant.

Inevitably, between the sweat and the smoke and the unearthly screeching of demons, Hawke thought of Fenris. He’d looked absolutely stunning on the deck of Isabela’s ship, wrapped in robes of pale blue silk, gold vambraces gleaming underneath the sun. It was the Tevinter style, he’d said, but the color of the fabric was his own preference. It would’ve matched the stones on his wedding band had Hawke been given the opportunity to bestow it upon him.

Hawke grunted as he swung his staff around to clobber a shade that had gotten too close. As he’d learned from the Qunari insurgency, combat in the shipping quarter was nothing short of inconvenient. Not enough open space and the added treachery of slipping into the bay with one wrong step. But everyone else seemed to be holding their own. As long as Donnic and the rest of the Kirkwall guard showed up soon, there was a good chance they’d all make it out alive.

To his left, Fenris began slashing his way through a cluster of demons, spitting and cursing as he did. Black ichor was smudged across his cheek and several jagged claw marks had ruined the metal of his breastplate. It struck Hawke that he found Fenris no less remarkable in this moment, aggressive and battle-worn, than he had just hours ago in the midst of their wedding.

And it was then that a rather absurd thought came to Hawke.

Varric once told him that he was at his maddest when the fighting got thickest. And this idea certainly proved it. But Hawke had sworn to spend whatever time he had left as a happily married man, and, Maker as his witness, he was going to see that particular promise through. It was untimely and bound to end in failure, but foolhardiness was never beyond Hawke in moments like these.

Well aware that what he was about to ask was unprecedentedly obtuse, he called out to Fenris above the clang of metal and tinny echoes of magic.

The elf spun to face him, eyes wide and chest heaving with adrenaline. Hawke caught hold of his arm and pulled him out of a Venatori’s line of fire just in time. A bolt of electricity flew past them, narrowly grazing the tips of Fenris’s pauldrons. Hawke returned the blast with some lightning of his own and watched in satisfaction as the mage stumbled off the side of the dock and into the waters below.

“Fenris, let’s finish the ceremony,” Hawke said when they were no longer in immediate danger.

Fenris gaped at him. “A platoon of corrupted mages and templars just stormed the city and you want to exchange wedding vows?!”

A rage demon suddenly broke through the fray and lunged at them. Fenris leapt out of the way while Hawke infused it with a vicious blast of ice. The creature wailed, steam rising from its flesh, until Fenris finished it off with a quick slice of his blade.

"This might be our only chance!" Hawke continued, gesturing wildly at the chaos around them.

When Fenris continued to give him that same incredulous look, Hawke stepped forward and took his hand. “Even if we win today, there’s no telling what will happen tomorrow. I want to face whatever comes with my husband by my side, starting right now. What do you say, love?”

"I..." Fenris began, a smile beginning to form on his lips. "I say we’ve waited long enough." 

Before Hawke could respond, Fenris turned over his shoulder and shouted, “Isabela, finish the ceremony!”

Isabela, who had been systematically taking apart every shambling corpse within a five-foot radius, paused long enough to reply, “Trying not to die at the moment, thanks! Come back later!”

“But you always said you were a multitask-er!” Hawke argued cheerfully. The thought of marrying Fenris in the midst of all this was making him giddy. “Come on, Admiral, let’s give Varric something to write about!”

More waves of demons were heading their way and Hawke raised his staff in preparation. Fenris slid into an aggressive stance at his back.

“Oh, _fine_ ,” Isabela sighed, and leapt onto a nearby stack of crates. When she spoke again, she'd adopted a much loftier tone. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today in the presence of every fucking demon from the Fade to join these two idiots in divine matrimony.”

Hawke snorted even as a shade attempted to dismember him. Carver and Merrill appeared at last, along with Donnic and his guardsmen. They were so close to thwarting this last assault, and hope spurred Hawke onwards even as fatigue pulled at his muscles.

“Do you, Garrett Hawke, take Fenris to be your—” Isabela paused and delivered a swift kick to an advancing Venatori’s jaw “—somewhat lawfully wedded husband?”

“I really do!”

Carver, who’d just rolled to a stop after dodging a fireball, regarded the three of them in disbelief. “You aren’t seriously doing what I think you’re doing.”

“Oh, they are,” said Aveline as she slammed her shield into a trio of demons.

“I’ve still got the rings,” Donnic, accommodating as ever, added. “Holler if you need them, Champion!”

“Very helpful, Donnic, thank you!”

Though the Venatori were dwindling, the swarms of demons and skeletons they’d summoned seemed endless. If they were going to exchange vows, Hawke thought, they’d have to do it quick. Marriage was a pressing matter, but the continued existence of Kirkwall was slightly more urgent at the moment.

Isabela seemed to be of the same mind. “Moving on!” she yelled. “Do you, Fenris, take Garrett Hawke to be your husband?”

Fenris gave Hawke a lopsided grin. “I do.”

“Maker be praised,” Hawke chuckled. Catching sight of a Venatori stalking their way, he shouted for Fenris to duck and sent a punishing blast of ice over the elf’s head in her direction.

“Someone get them the rings or so help me—!”

Donnic, who was already preoccupied with a host of shades, whistled to Merrill. Hawke’s view of the exchange was obstructed by a pile of cargo, but he did catch the glimmer of gold being tossed through the air and into Merrill’s outstretched hand.

After knocking a Venatori out cold with her staff, she darted to Hawke’s side and slipped the rings into a pocket on his belt. “This is all very romantic,” she told him. “Careful not to drop them!”

Hawke barely had time to give her his thanks before she’d turned away to send a pile of rubble in the direction of a group of wraiths.

“Right!” said Isabela cheerfully. She separated a skeleton’s head from its shoulders before shoving it into the water. “I forget what I’m supposed to say during this part so just put the rings on!”

It took quite a bit of fancy footwork to do so, but Hawke managed to slide the ring onto Fenris’s finger without incident. The turquoise gems sparkled brilliantly in the light of the fires burning across the docks.

“This is madness,” Fenris said, laughing breathlessly as he did the same for Hawke.

Hawke beamed at him. “When I said I’d lead you to strange places, I bloody well meant it.”

A deafening roar echoed across the docks, and they turned in time to see a newly summoned pride demon, larger than the last, begin charging towards them. Aveline and Carver exchanged a nod and engaged it head-on.

“Might have to save your vows for later,” Aveline shouted at them, punctuating her words with a strike to the demon’s flank.

Hawke nodded, then leapt across the docks to keep approaching skeletons off their backs.

“It’s a shame,” Fenris remarked breezily, even as he severed one from hip to shoulder, “I was rather looking forward to giving my speech.”

“You can tell it to me later,” Hawke assured him. “Preferably naked.”

Fenris laughed loudly before signaling to Isabela that they were ready to continue.

Isabela had yet to abandon her position on the stack of crates in spite of the best efforts of both demons and Venatori to displace her. As a result, bodies were piled up nearly as high as her makeshift pulpit. She gave Fenris a salute and a wink, then declared, daggers high, “By the power vested in me as captain of the sexiest ship in the Waking Sea, I now pronounce you man and elf!”

“Are they going to kiss now?” Merrill cried. The ends of her braids were singed but she looked cheerful as ever, having just finished smiting no less than seven rage demons.

At her suggestion, Hawke pulled Fenris into his arms, only to be interrupted by the pride demon’s corpse now crashing down between them. Carver, who stood triumphant on top of it, shrugged apologetically.

Isabela glared at him and managed to utter a quick “You may kiss—!” before being waylaid by one of the few Venatori left standing. She dispatched the mage easily enough, muttering about unwelcome interruptions, then attempted to finish the ceremony again. This time, Aveline came barreling forward to get her out of the way of an ice blast.

The women landed in a heap on the ground, from which Isabela yelled, “Andraste’s flaming knickers, just _kiss_ already!”

And as the skies burst open and rain began to fall from the clouds hanging low above them, Hawke grabbed Fenris around the waist and kissed him deeply. Their companions hurled themselves back into the fray, battle cries thundering right along with the storm. The last of the Venatori fell and abominations sprouted from their bodies like weeds. But for the pair clinging to each other in the center of it all, nothing else seemed to matter. 

Still, their ring-bearing hands remained clasped around their weapons, ready to slay anything that dared to separate them now.

_____

“Right, so that isn’t _exactly_ how it happened.”

Varric shut his manuscript with a definitive _thump_ and looked at Hawke over the rim of his reading glasses. “Oh?”

“Well, we were already married when the Venatori showed up,” said Hawke, who hadn’t missed the subtle reproachfulness in the dwarf’s eyes. “We saw the smoke from Isabela’s ship and then pulled into port. And only a handful of Red Templars were there. Definitely not scores of them. In fact, there was significantly less certainty of death than usual.”

“There’s bound to be a few inaccuracies,” Varric replied archly. “I could only rely on hearsay, you know, being that I wasn’t _there.”_

“We just couldn’t wait any longer, Varric. Not with another massive breach in the sky and everyone from here to Ferelden in a state of panic.”

The dwarf turned away and started busying himself with a stack of papers on the dining table. In The Hanged Man downstairs, the sound of glass shattering erupted over the hum of conversation, followed by a loud chorus of disapproval. Above the clatter, Isabela yelled something about poor sportsmanship and a groan that could only belong to Aveline accompanied it.

“So I’m getting the silent treatment, then?” Hawke asked, arms crossed.

Varric tossed what appeared to be a letter from the Merchant’s Guild into the fireplace and said nothing. 

“Oh, come now, let’s be adults about this. You can't be cross with me forever.”

Hawke sidled his way over to Varric and checked him with his hip. “We can always renew our vows, you know. We can even make it a destination event! Somewhere sunny like Antiva. I know how much you loved it the last time we were there.”

Varric snorted and looked at him at last. “People don’t renew their vows three months after they get married, Hawke.”

“I might! My romantic inclinations practically demand it.”

“You have me there,” Varric admitted. “And how could I stay mad when my adaptation is already earning me double what _Hard in Hightown_ did?”

There was a knock from the hall and both men turned to find Fenris leaning against the doorframe. “You’ve borrowed my husband for long enough, Varric,” he said. “Everyone’s waiting and you know how impatient Isabela gets.”

“You really think it’s a good idea to hang around the only tavern in Kirkwall without even a little bit of a disguise?” Varric asked for the umpteenth time. 

His concern wasn’t totally unfounded. But in the years since the Chantry explosion, most of Kirkwall’s original residents had moved on. A person could only take so much city-wide destruction in one decade, Hawke assumed. Those who weren’t wealthy enough to pick up their lives somewhere new probably didn’t care if the infamous Champion returned anyway. They had plenty of other concerns beyond an apostate-turned-privateer. 

The most popular whispers hinted that Hawke had simply vanished, much like he had five years before. If rumors spread that he was frequenting the Free Marches again, it wasn’t likely they would gain the same traction as the others. This was in no small part due to Varric’s storytelling and, Hawke suspected, Cassandra’s more public statements from her position within the Inquisition. 

“Even if we were at risk,” Fenris reasoned, “everyone’s too drunk to do anything about it at the moment.”

Varric shook his head fondly. “Coming from the elf with conspicuously white hair and fancy tattoos, that isn’t too reassuring. But I’m thirsty and Isabela promised me a Wicked Grace rematch, so I won’t press the issue.”

“Though I’m telling you, Hawke,” he added as they headed for the stairs, “your chances of being recognized plummet the moment you shave off that beard.”

Hawke felt Fenris’s hand circle around his wrist. “Don’t you dare.”

After Varric went to meet with Isabela at the bar, Hawke and Fenris paused in the stairwell, arms at each other’s waists. Years ago, this sort of casual intimacy would've been unheard of between them. Now, it felt as natural as breathing.

“What did you make of Varric’s story?” Fenris asked. “Aveline told me it was…embellished.”

“Only a little,” Hawke replied with a crooked grin. “But our version wasn’t any less exciting, even without all the demons.”

“There were _some_ demons,” said Fenris. “I stopped one from decapitating you, as I recall.”

Hawke chuckled. “So you did.”

In the companionable silence that followed, Fenris lifted Hawke’s hand and examined his wedding ring. “Strange to think that three months have passed already. I find myself wondering what my younger self would’ve thought of all this, had I known what was to come. I’m not sure if I’d have believed I could be this happy.”

“Me neither.” Hawke shook his head, smiling. “If Varric could hear us now, he’d be ashamed at how predictably cliché we are.”

Fenris looped his arms around Hawke’s neck. “We’re newlyweds. There’s an allowance for clichés, is there not?”

“Mm,” Hawke agreed, and nudged their noses together. “I get the feeling we’ll be using that excuse for quite some time.”

They stood in the shadows of the stairwell for a moment, kissing one another softly. It amazed Hawke how he never tired of the taste of Fenris’s lips, how every touch still managed to thrill and delight him. He’d overheard his father say something similar about his mother years and years ago, long after he’d thought Hawke and the twins had gone to bed. A vastly different circumstance, a vastly different relationship. But in this, they were the same.

“Do you remember what I said to you our second night together?” Fenris asked once they’d separated again. His arms remained twined around Hawke’s shoulders and something playful was twinkling in his eyes.

“I think I might have an idea,” Hawke replied. “Tell me anyway.”

“If there is a future to be had, I will walk into it gladly at your side.” 

Hawke beamed at him, heart full to bursting, and covered the hand that rose to cup his cheek tenderly. 

“Husband,” Fenris said, taking his time with the word that had already been whispered a thousand times between them, “I have been grateful for every step.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I said the Pirates of the Caribbean reference would return in a big way, I meant it! All kidding aside, I've had an absolute blast writing this story. Thank you to all who read and left comments/kudos. Your feedback was absolutely amazing and made the experience so rewarding for me. I've got plenty of future projects in the works and I can't wait to share them here again.
> 
> Until then, you'll find me [here](http://www.astrariums.tumblr.com) xx


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